Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/live-export-animals/
Billions of farm animals are forced into this agonizing system every day, traveling for days straight with with no food, no water, and no rest. Millions of the animals suffer and die in the process, Sentient Media reports.
According to The Guardian, 5 million animals are in transit and exposed to poor conditions and inhumane slaughter upon arrival every single day, and 2 billion farm animals are loaded onto trucks and ships on journeys spanning weeks annually.
The lack of oversight of the global live animal trade has meant that the drowning of thousands of sheep and trucks of cattle being left to suffer in extremely hot vehicles in ports are sadly common, Freightwaves reports.
Live export animal suffering has become a global issue.
Romania sends 2 million sheep a year to destinations all over the world. In 2019, a cargo ship from Romania carrying live animals capsized, killing more than 14,000 sheep, The Guardian reports. In 2019 and 2020, almost 2,000 sheep crowded on to trucks endured journeys of up to 2,000 miles from the UK to Bulgaria and Hungary despite UK government pledges to ban long trips for slaughter and fattening, according to The Times.
The shipping industry is largely not set up to facilitate humane transport of live animals. Ships are more likely to capsize if they’re older, converted, carry destabilizing loads of animals, and registered in flag states with weaker safety records, Freightwaves reports.
According to Lloyd’s List, there have been seven total losses of livestock carriers in the past decade, leading to the deaths of 50,000 animals and 170 seafarers.
One of the worst casualties in recent history occurred on August 14, 2020, when a container ship built in 2001, the the Gulf Livestock 1, left New Zealand for China with 5,867 live cattle aboard. It sank in the East China Sea when a typhoon struck two weeks later. All of the animals and all but two of the 43 crew perished, Reuters reports.
This incident prompted New Zealand to enact a temporary suspension on exports of livestock that year, and then a permanent ban on the export of livestock by sea in 2021.
Australia is the world’s largest live exporter of animals for slaughter, facilitating shipments of live animals that often face mortality rates of 2% or higher. According to Voiceless The Animal Protection Institute Australian ports ship a range of animals including alpacas, buffalo, camels, cattle, deer, sheep and goats to over 60 countries around the world, most slaughtered for human consumption
Help us stop these unnecessary deaths! Click below and ask the government of Australia to ban live sheep and cattle exports!
Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog
