Pleuntje was two weeks old and had a reddish coat that made her unique among the sanctuary’s donkeys.
She disappeared on the night of Monday, September 7, 2026, in Baarle-Nassau, the Netherlands, after the fence of Stichting Het Ezelpaleis had been jumped. Six people searched for her until dawn without finding a trace. The next day, after they had already searched the same pasture dozens of times, her owner, Marlhene Mouws, found her body lying next to the fence: a gunshot had pierced her chest, and her neck and legs were injured.
Without a microchip or passport, Pleuntje was of no use on the black market, where a documented miniature donkey can be worth up to 17,000 dollars. Mouws believes that is why they brought her back dead, after trying to sell her. “Who would do this to a baby who doesn’t even have teeth yet?”, she asked. The sanctuary’s cameras could not cover the meadow where it all happened.