long distance transport « A Compassionate World

Posts Tagged ‘long distance transport’

Ireland’s live exports to Libya

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

The battle against long distance live transport of animals is one being taken forward by committed individuals and organisations in many countries. It is a campaign that I know is close to the heart of so many of our supporters. It is a bedrock campaign for us. It was therefore with huge sadness that we learned of the recent reopening of the live cattle trade from Ireland to Libya. My colleague, Joyce D’Silva, linked arms in protest with concerned citizens on this latest campaign front. This is her personal account:

There were five burly security guards blocking the entrance to the port. My taxi driver pulled up. “Is the cattle ship down here?” I asked. “Yes.” “Can I go down and see it?” I requested politely. “No you can’t,” their leader said firmly.

I couldn’t ask the taxi driver to risk his vehicle. I’d just seen a police car drive down ahead of us to the quayside. They’d be notified if we tried to go further. Reluctantly, we turned and drove back up the hill.

My willing taxi driver kindly sidetracked into a large grain store yard where we thought I might get a vantage point to take a photo of the cattle ship. I got out and trekked down behind the buildings, but security fencing and trees blocked my view.

There was no way I was going to be able to witness the loading of 2,900 cattle destined for Libya on to the “Al Mahmoud” at the docks in Waterford.

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Tags: live exports, long distance transport. Posted in General | No Comments »

What was ‘Top Blog’ 2012?

Thursday, January 3rd, 2013

Even though 2013 is just a few days old, I want to take a moment to consider your 10 favourite blog posts of 2012.

Key issues emerge from the blogs that received most of your attention last year. For example, concern for the international dimension of animal welfare was high, in particular, long distance transportation. Legislative victories for farm animals were also popular. Blogs on the links between world hunger and factory farming were also popular; and you wanted to know more about how to feed the world’s growing population.

1. The most read blog of the year was The Tragedy of the Gracia del Mar. The Gracia del Mar, which left Brazil for Egypt with 5,600 cattle on board, sailed into storms which caused misery and death for the animals.

2. Keeping with the issue of long distance transportation of animals, the second most read blog was the Shame of Ipswich. The live export of sheep and calves from the UK to the European mainland is at an all time low but one or two companies persist with this cruel and unnecessary trade. Our campaign continues to see it finished off forever.

Lyn White, Animals Australia

3. Again, transportation was an important subject in my interview with good friend and leading animal advocate, Lyn White from Animals Australia. I know many of you were inspired from learning about Lyn and her work.

4. And now for something completely different! The California ban on paté de foie gras caught your attention. We agree. Something considered a delicacy is nothing more than animal cruelty.

5. The plight of farm animals in Egypt and Turkey caught on tape in a new film raised a great deal of concern. Horrific reports of the ill treatment of sheep and cattle showed the need for the recommendations on welfare during transport and slaughter of the World Organisation for Animal Health need to be implemented immediately.

Philip & Duke

6. Animal sentience and intelligence captured your interest in Do Animals Think? From our highly popular video of dancing cows to my personal reflection of our newly adopted rescued pup, Duke, I made the case that animals feel and think. Something I know we all agree with!

7. The terrific news that Battery Cages Banned in the European Union made for an excellent beginning to 2012.

Food Sense – a common sense approach to feeding the world

8. You paid close attention to how we will feed the world with Food Sense. I reported on our annual lecture in memory of Compassion’s founder, Peter Roberts MBE, which argued for ‘Food Sense’. We need a common-sense approach that puts people first, reduces food waste and is based on farming like tomorrow matters. That way, we can cut out cruelty, senseless wastage and ensure everyone is fed properly; something we are currently failing miserably to do.

9. How to feed a hungry world? was a question that many of you wanted to know the answer to. Compassion partnered with The Tubney Charitable Trust and World Society for the Protection of Animals to commission a study which found food security is put at risk by intensive livestock farming and high meat consumption.

10. Again, food issues were important to you. The Bitter Taste of Cheap Food was our tenth most read blog in 2012. One of the leading farmers involved in the campaign against the proposed-but-failed 8,000 cow mega-dairy in Nocton, Lincolnshire, was dairy farmer, Neil Darwent. I reproduced, with his kind permission, an article by him that challenged our presumptions about cheap milk.

My blog, A Compassionate World, is how I like to keep in touch personally with you and our many supporters. Here, I bring you up to date with latest developments, incidents and news, good and bad, as well as updates on all-important progress on animal welfare.

Together, we can end all cruel factory farming practices and promote viable alternative methods to feeding people.

Please share A Compassionate World with your family, friends and colleagues.

Thank you for joining me. I look forward to us working together in 2013!

Tags: animal sentience, battery cages, foie gras, food sense, live exports, long distance transport. Posted in General | No Comments »

Ramsgate live exports suspended

Friday, September 14th, 2012

Thanet District Council suspended live animal shipments from the English port of Ramsgate following a horror show involving the deaths of more than 40 sheep. A four-tier lorry with 500 sheep was declared by port inspectors as unfit to travel. Subsequent unloading revealed over 40 sheep so lame they had to be put out of their misery; one had a broken leg. During unloading, six sheep fell into the sea, two drowned. Two drivers were reported to have been arrested.

Thanet council acted swiftly, announcing the next day a suspension of the trade. No doubt mindful of the obscure 1847 Harbours Act that forbids ports from turning away trade without good reason, the council has made it clear that the suspension stands until if and when provisions are in place to ensure the proper handling of the animals.

Just days earlier, in what now seems a prophetic letter, Thanet councillors wrote to Defra warning that there were “no suitable facilities” at the port to assure the welfare of farm animals. Councillors called for Defra’s support in taking action to protect the welfare of the animals caught up in this trade.

Ramsgate is the only port exporting live animals from England for slaughter or fattening. The trade moved there in 2011 when the preferred facility at Dover became damaged. A total of over 76,000 animals have been exported through Ramsgate so far this year; the vast majority being sheep, but also over 8,000 calves.

The local authority has taken a hugely welcome step. I loudly applaud Thanet District Council’s leadership in suspending this cruel and unnecessary trade. Whilst this is cause for celebration, it is unlikely to be the end of the story. History has shown animal exporters to be stubborn in keeping their trade alive, moving from port to port and even using aircraft to keep this trade in misery flowing. I fear that, as I write, exporters are plotting their next move. We look to Defra to heed public outcry and finish this trade off once and for all. All eyes are on David Heath and his ministerial colleagues to take decisive action against an archaic practice that has no place in modern society.

Please help us in taking action to end this trade forever. Thank you.

Tags: live exports, long distance transport. Posted in General | No Comments »

Ramsgate live exports tragedy

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

Compassion has been campaigning against the live export trade from Ramsgate since it started up in May last year and against long distance live animal transport in general for decades.

So the news that 45 sheep died at the port yesterday was not only saddening, it was hugely frustrating.

Along with our colleagues at the RSPCA and local campaigners we have made it clear to the authorities that Ramsgate port is not fit for purpose as far as live exports are concerned. We are against this trade altogether, all farm animals should be slaughtered as close as possible to where they are reared, but whether the trade exists or not, Ramsgate should not be used.

This latest tragedy shines a spotlight on the grave shortcomings at Ramsgate and the terrible suffering that this causes animals when things, as they inevitably will, go wrong.
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Tags: live exports, long distance transport. Posted in General | No Comments »

The Tragedy of the Gracia Del Mar

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

There is no excuse for the inhumane treatment of farmed animals, particularly at the point of slaughter, when they are at their most vulnerable. Indeed, any cruelty to farmed animals is unacceptable wherever it occurs in the world.

Recent exposés of the international trade in live farmed animals reveal cruelty and suffering to be routine and tolerated.

Compassion, in cooperation with various like-minded organisations, has exposed throughout Europe, Turkey and Egypt unacceptable treatment of animals in long distance transportation and their slaughter.

Even Britain is not exempt. After an undercover investigation documented cruel and unnecessary treatment of pigs, I repeated my call for the installation of CCTV in British slaughterhouses to ensure the law is strictly enforced and any transgressions prosecuted.

You may also recall my interview with Lyn White from Animals Australia. She documented shocking examples of cruelty when cattle raised in Australia were killed in Indonesia.

Thousands of live farmed animals are needlessly transported long distances across continents, including from continent to continent, and across the world’s oceans, often to countries whose slaughter methods would be considered illegal by those with stricter laws.

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Tags: CCTV, investigation, long distance transport, slaughter. Posted in General | 13 Comments »

Joanna Lumley renews live exports fight

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

Joanna Lumley at the launch

Trafalgar Square, London: I’m with Joanna Lumley on the top deck of a red Routemaster bus. The ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ actress is with me to launch a new campaign against the long distance transport of animals for slaughter and fattening. Sadly, it’s a trade that appears to be resurgent, at least from Britain to the continent.

After the New Year’s festivities, back-to-work Britain has been battered with gale-force winds. Outside, it’s another blustery day. Fences have been torn down, trains have been disrupted. But it hasn’t stopped a scrum of journalists and photographers turning up to catch the moment. We clamber down the bus’s narrow passenger staircase. In the shadow of the pillars and domes of the National Gallery, the unmistakably stylish figure of Joanna poses dramatically for the cameras. Behind her, our bus is decked out in a white banner advertisement showing sheep peering haplessly from the slats of a livestock truck. Beside it are the words, “They can’t ring the bell when they want to get off”. It’s the beginning of a nationwide campaign to renew the spotlight on a trade that has caused unimaginable suffering to so many animals for far too long.

Three times more animals, mainly sheep and calves, were exported live from Britain last year than the year before. It’s a deeply worrying trend. Over 200 trucks trundled through Kent to the continent in 2011, taking sheep to their deaths in far away slaughterhouses and calves to continental veal farms that all too often operate standards so poor they would be illegal in Britain. Over 75,000 animals in all were exported live from Britain last year. Thankfully, it’s a far cry from the 2.5 million animals that used to cross the English Channel before the nationwide protests in the early 1990s. But it’s a worrying increase nonetheless.

Joanna is resplendent in a slim black outfit topped off with a burgundy-beige tweed jacket, golden hair tied back in a pony-tail. She speaks fluidly, passionately and persuasively: “The cruelty involved in the trade is shocking!” She points to new footage showing animals caught up in the trade. They are exhausted, without food or water, forced to eat their filthy bedding. The scenes are a snapshot of the millions of farm animals transported across the European Union on journeys sometimes lasting up to 2 days. “The numbers from Britain have reduced dramatically since 15 years ago but are again on the rise” Joanna explains, “this campaign is aimed at bringing the spotlight back on the issue.”

Joanna is a committed and tireless campaigner, not least on this issue, having taken part in countless media events and press conferences calling for an end to the trade. I remember one day in particular in the mid-1990s when Joanna helped us launch a new undercover investigation showing the latest evidence of horrendous cruelty involved in animal transport. Joanna was watching the film for the first time at the conference. As she watched, she cried. That was the photo that captured the imagination of the cameras and the hearts of the general public.

A decade and a half later, we’re launching a new campaign; this time aimed at finishing off a remnant trade that really should have been left behind in the 20th Century. Buses throughout Britain will carry our message over the coming weeks. We will increase the pressure on Brussels, Westminster and Ramsgate; the latter being the only British port taking live animals for slaughter. We will encourage people everywhere to join the campaign – www.stopliveexports.com Your support, as ever, is hugely appreciated. Atop the red bus, Joanna declares 2012 as “the year for change – let’s make it happen!” I couldn’t agree more.

Tags: animal transport, bus, Joanna Lumley, live exports, long distance transport. Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Turkey live exports

Monday, October 24th, 2011

I defy anyone to watch the latest undercover exposé from Turkey of the transport and slaughter of sheep and cattle and not feel sickened and angry.

Here’s yet more gruesome footage in which unforgivable and inexcusable things are done to farmed animals when they are at their most vulnerable. Please understand that it’s as difficult for me and everyone at Compassion to watch this footage as I am sure it is for you. But please don’t turn away. We owe it to the animals to know how they’re abused in order to speak out on their behalf with authority.

As we saw repeatedly from previous undercover investigations in, for example, Egypt in 2009 and Indonesia this year, sheep, cattle and pigs are repeatedly abused in contravention of the international recommendations of the World Organisation for Animal Health on welfare at slaughter.

We cannot allow these situations to continue. Developments in Turkey are particularly distressing. In the first half of this year almost 600,000 sheep were transported to Turkey from the EU. This is more than twice as many as in the whole of 2010. At least 100,000 cattle were exported from the EU to Turkey in the first half of 2011. This is nearly twice as many as in the whole of 2010. On current trends, we could see more than 1 million animals travel the route this year.

The European Commission has several times been given detailed information about the welfare abuses involved in live exports to Turkey. We have told them how EU law designed to protect animals is regularly broken during these journeys and how protracted delays at the border – lasting hours, sometimes days – intensifies the suffering. Despite this the Commission has failed to take any effective action. If you want to write to the Commission please join us in taking action here.

All of this underscores the importance of keeping up the pressure against the long distance transport trade in animals internationally. Thank you for your continued support.

Tags: Egypt, Indonesia, live exports, long distance transport, slaughter, transport, Turkey, welfare at slaughter. Posted in General | 2 Comments »

Long Distance Transportation is a No Go

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

How many undercover reports exposing the horrific treatment of farmed animals in long distance travel does it take to change the law?

I wish I knew.

It seems that all too often, those who represent us in local, national and international governments across the world are unwilling or unable to act decisively to protect the welfare of animals. This is especially evident in the long distance transport trade in animals for slaughter or fattening.

Well, I say enough’s enough. It’s time for our elected representatives to demonstrate leadership. I believe they must know in their heart of hearts that present regulatory systems do not work. As do those who administer the network of voluntary codes, regulations and often unenforced laws relating to animal transport.

We prove this every time we, as well as the many other fine organisations across the world, go undercover to document the horrific treatment of live farmed animals shipped long distances. Every investigation is near guaranteed to reveal animal cruelty and ineffective enforcement of regulations regardless of the country or continent in which it takes place .

The latest is the shocking exposé of bulls, pregnant heifers and sheep forced to take hot and dangerous long distance journeys for as much as 2,200km from Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece and Latvia to Turkey. This is the latest in a long line of undercover investigations within the European Union, including via Ramsgate, and from Australia to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

In the latest exposé which we co-produced with Eyes on Animals and the Animal Welfare Foundation, approximately 90% of the transport journeys which were inspected breached EU Regulation 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport. For example, delays lasted hours, even days, while the trucks waited for veterinary and customs clearance at Turkey’s border. Animals were left in blistering heat (up to 58 centigrade) on stationary vehicles without sufficient ventilation, water and food. Exhausted, hungry and thirsty animals stood in a thick layer of their own excreta. They were not even given any water or food when they were unloaded to check their weight or gender. Even unfit animals who could not walk were forced back onto the trucks.

This is why Compassion works tirelessly to see an end to long distance transport of animals. That is why we also support the 8 Hours campaign. The goal is to collect one million signatures in a petition to the European Parliament in support of law which makes it illegal to transport animals for slaughter for more than eight hours. I signed the petition. Have you?

Please also write today to Commissioner John Dalli, who is responsible for animal welfare, urging the European Commission to stop the export of animals to Turkey to prevent further suffering. Stress that the trade must be ended on a permanent basis as the distances and climatic conditions are too extreme to guarantee even minimal animal welfare standards. His address is:

Commissioner John Dalli
Commissioner for Health and Consumers
European Commission
B-1049 Brussels
Belgium

And please don’t forget to tell your family, friends and colleagues. Urge them to join our campaign by supporting Compassion on Facebook and following me on Twitter. It’s time to put an end to the long distance transport trade in animals for good.

Tags: 8 hours campaign, Animal Welfare Foundation, Eyes on Animals, live transport, long distance transport. Posted in General | 1 Comment »