To the international animal transport day…

Around 3.8 million animals are transported every day in the EU alone.

That is 1.4 billion animals a year.

As in all sectors of the economy, animal transport is about money: animals are transported to where the greatest profits are: Pigs are born in Austria, fattened in Spain, and slaughtered in Lebanon.

Animal transports take place under cruel conditions. The longer an animal is transported, the more the animals suffer.

Strict savings are made on feed, bedding, and drinking water, as additional weight means higher transport costs.

Nine million pigs, four million cattle, three million sheep, 400 million poultry, and more than 100,000 horses from Eastern Europe are on the move.

The usual journey time for international animal transports is between 50 and 90 hours.

Horses that are transported from Lithuania to Sardinia are 100 hours in the transporter, cattle that are shipped to the Middle East for a whole week.

It’s hard to believe, but transporting live animals is more economical than transporting them slaughtered in a refrigerated truck. This includes the reason why animal transporters travel long distances at home and abroad instead of slaughtering the animals in a slaughterhouse near the fattening plant.

There are applicable EU directives that stipulate the transport of animals without unloading, but these are hardly checked. Permitted would be 29 hours for cattle, 24 hours for pigs and horses, 19 hours for calves, and lambs.

If it is checked and infringement is found, the punishments are trivial and in no way act as a deterrent. Compliance with the applicable EU directives is also practically prevented because of a simple reason: along the main European traffic routes, there are hardly any suitable unloading stations for breaks.

In November 2001, the EU Parliament introduced a legislative initiative according to which duration of 8 hours and a maximum distance of 500 kilometers should not be exceeded when transporting live animals.

In July 2003, the EU Commission finally put the following completely inadequate proposal on the table: after nine hours of driving, twelve hours of rest should follow.

But not just once, but often one after the other at will!!

According to the proposal, “slightly injured” animals are also transported on. An unbearable situation for all animal rights activists!

It was also decided to end export subsidies for live animal transport to third countries. But due to countless exception rules, which are also laid down by the EU Commission, these laws are completely ineffective.

We have beautiful laws and tons of exceptions!! There are so many exceptions that export subsidies for cattle increased from 58 to 67 million euros between 2002 and 2003!

Until today,  instead of reducing long-distance transport, the EU is still promoting these live animal transports!

 

Why they are animal transports so lucrative?
Because EU subsidies continue to flow and flow in favor of factory farming, the animal traders and the freight lobby …

This means that instead of reducing long-distance transports, the EU is promoting them until today because the commissioners in Brussels do the best lobby work for the meat industry.

And because, despite the information, despite videos from the hell of animal transports and animal farms, meat-eaters still want to eat dead animals and their products!

But we can change this murderous world order, it must be feasible to awaken conscience in this society. That must be our goal!

Our job is not to complain about, we need struggle and effectiveness.

My best regards to all, Venus