Toronto’s most infamous slaughterhouse reopened on March 1st under new management.
Sign our new petition to STOP Tru Harvest!
Ryding Regency Meat Packers was ordered to permanently close due to e-corona contamination in December 2019. But yesterday, with the same general manager, Tru Harvest opened its doors at the same location to kill 83,200 cows and baby calves per year.
The majority of the mother cows are pregnant at the time of slaughter.
Activists from Toronto Pig Save and Toronto Cow Save held joint actions yesterday outside the CFIA offices in Toronto at midday and held a cow vigil outside Tru Harvest Meats from 1:30 pm to 3 pm to protest this egregious atrocity and demand the license for Tru Harvest be withdrawn.
Bearing witness at an Animal Save Movement vigil.
“Slaughterhouses across Canada have been the site of many of the country’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks, and it’s indefensible that the provincial and federal governments would be allowing this business to re-open,” says Jenny McQueen, an activist with Toronto Pig Save.
“Dairy is a leading cause of environmental degradation, as well as being directly linked to negative health outcomes. We’re calling on the federal government to cease subsidies that are going towards propping up a collapsing cow milk industry that kills mother cows once their dairy production slows and ‘veal’ calves under 12 months old who have not been given the chance for life.
We also call on the federal government and the CFIA to withdraw the license for Tru Harvest Meats and shut them down.”
Anita Krajnc, founder of Toronto Pig Save, and Joaquin Phoenix to attend a protest, September 2019-photo by Joanne McArthur
If you live in Toronto, join us for our weekly cow vigils, Tuesday mornings 10 am – 12 pm at St. Helen’s slaughterhouse, 1-3 Glen Scarlett Rd (opposite the proposed site of the new slaughterhouse). Toronto Pig Save has launched a petition to close down Tru Harvest. Please sign and share widely.
And I mean…We must not give up, the fight for animal liberation goes on, and not least because some activists have even given their lives for animal rights
Regan Russell, 65, was violently beaten and killed by a pig truck outside Sofina’s Fearmans slaughterhouse on Friday, June 19, 2020.
She was with six other activists at a vigil in Toronto to give water to pigs on one of the hottest days of the year. She attended vigils regularly, and that day Regan was there to oppose Ontario’s “ag-gag” Bill 156, which had been passed two days earlier.
She is gone, but not forgotten, she will always be remembered.
A few days ago is an article in the German newspaper “Tagesspiegel” appeared…“When animal welfare becomes a problem: why this farmer has to kill his pigs …” Against this article is written a very accurate criticism from the blog “Pig Live”. Here’s the criticism:
“200 new victims? Oh, they’re just pigs …
As is well known, African swine fever (ASF) reached Germany in September 2020.
The outbreak so far affects the east part of our (banana) Republic and the victims are all wild boars.
Until now.
On March 12th In all likelihood, around 200 domestic pigs will have to go under the number of victims. Animals that are not sick at all.
But: they live with one of the few farmers in this country who keeps pigs free.
That alone is a rarity because Germany packs millions of pigs into the tightest concrete stables.
Stables that would never do justice to the word. Because they are industrial plants.
Behind this is the highly industrialized pork industry, which has a big stone on the board with our politicians.
The outbreak of African swine fever caused exports to collapse.
An important pillar of an industry that has been producing and murdering more and more pigs for years, although pork consumption in Germany has been declining for decades.
In addition, there was congestion caused by Corona. They could no longer murder the pigs “promptly” and “just in time”. Even more animal suffering and misery were and are the result.
But as long as one can make plenty of money elsewhere, as the Tönnies case shows, killing animals, this important pillar of our society must be maintained. Pigs for China, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Cheers to our government’s agricultural policy
Farmer Staar’s 200 pigs are actually lucky. They have at least one life that the 56 million other pigs in Germany would never have had.
Instead of 0.75m² of concrete, they can dig into the real ground and see the sun.
Enjoy the fresh air.
But now they are being murdered on the altar of the necessary pork export for no reason.
Because: Free-range farms are subject to approval in Germany and are subject to absurd regulations. Which in the end should only ensure one thing: pigs belong in the barn. Basta!!
1/3/21 – We also know now that the ‘Elbeik’ has left Cyprus, and is heading West in the Med Sea. We have a suspicion that this vessel may also be heading back to Spain. More news when we know.
See videos below:
Karim Allah’s cattle about to be killed
A structure to kill the animals has been set up just off the ramp
I have a feeling that lots of human heads are going to roll after all this – we will do all we can to get the animals some justice from the utter useless human tools involved in this; names will be named and photos posted.
Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE) is trying to rescue dogs from two illegal dog farms in Gimpo, South Korea. These dogs were left alone to survive on completely rotten and molded food waste that appears to be at least 10 – 20 days old.
Scattered among the living dogs were the bodies of those that had already died. CARE came with another dog rescue group You Sachun but the farm owner is nowhere to be found. CARE had received an agreement from one of the dog farms that they would relinquish their dogs yesterday, but the second farm is the one with even more dogs trying to survive in even more horrific conditions, and there is no relinquish agreement with that farm owner.
If not rescued soon, it is unknown how long these dogs can survive. This dog farm is no better than a grave for the dogs; these poor animals are so desperate they cried out when they saw the CARE rescuers, begging to be saved. It’s suspected that dogs at some government shelters, instead of being euthanized, were illegally brought here. There are all kinds of dogs here including the dogs who had vocal cord removal surgery.
Despite the request for help, the City of Gimpo and the Gyeonggi-do Special Police never showed up. CARE and You Sachun will use all means possible to save the dogs. They are asking us to file a protest with the city of Gimpo and Gyeonggi-do province to help with the removal of these dogs from this dog farm. There are about 60 dogs to be rescued and CARE and You Sachun will try to rescue all of them, provide medical care, and find homes for them.
‘One mans terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’
“A particularly brutal process called “ventilation shutdown,” or VSD. Workers sealed off airways while pumping steam into the barns, intensifying the heat — over the course of many hours — to the point at which the pigs died from suffocation and/or hyperthermia”.
Source The Intercept: “…making it quite possible that some pigs survived, and are therefore buried alive or crushed by the bulldozers that haul away the corpses.”
Let’s be clear: all animal slaughter is inherently abusive and cruel and causes fear and suffering regardless of how humans, who will never be subjected to the same violent fate, define it. Those who are horrified by ventilation shutdown yet not “commonly accepted” forms of slaughter are actually just using one form of cruelty to justify another.
Please visit HERE to learn of the violence inherent in the animal exploitation industry regardless of how you define such, and before you reject footage as “the exception” (it’s not) or based on vegan “propaganda” (versus nothing provided by the animal exploiters) just remember: the “animal agriculture industry” relies on and actively pursues consumer ignorance, willful or not, and DO NOT release their own footage. Ask yourself why that is: if they are humane, they can prove it, but are unable to, and rather than use funds supporting “humane treatment” they use money to hide their deception, cruelty, greed, and intentional participation in abject suffering. That is why you will never see the an-ag industry actually demonstrate “humane treatment” before or during the killing; they instead hide the barbarism and focus on those who are exposing it.
Last June, Noel Williams, the chief operations officer of Iowa Select Farms, a powerful pork company and the largest in Iowa, pulled into the parking lot of an empty housing complex typically used for the firm’s immigrant workforce.
He was there to transport Lucas Walker, a former truck driver for Iowa Select, to a meeting with Nick Potratz, an FBI agent from the Des Moines office of the bureau. That’s according to Walker, who had recently tried to report Iowa Select, his former employer, for mistreating animals. After The Intercept published leaked video of pigs being killed off en masse, Walker came under scrutiny.
Now, the FBI had a favor to ask: Would Walker become an informant? More specifically, they wanted him to help in an effort to investigate and undermine an activist group that had become a thorn in Iowa Select’s side. They even asked if he’d be willing to sell drugs.
The saga that brought him into contact with the FBI began when the 26-year-old grew frustrated with his former employer, Iowa Select, which is headquartered in his hometown of Iowa Falls. Walker thought the company was blatantly disregarding state “double stocking” rules, which limit the size and number of pigs that are held in an intensive animal feeding facility, letting overweight pigs crowd into pens far too small to hold them.
He was tired of what he saw as frequent rule-breaking and disregard for the well-being of the tens of thousands of hogs raised by Iowa Select. The company, in his view, seemed hellbent on expansion and profits, leading to rampant overcrowding and water pollution. That rapid expansion led to the annual production of 1.5 billion pounds of pork a year, a global leader before the pandemic. The novel coronavirus, however, closed regional slaughterhouses, creating a glut of pigs.
He decided to speak out and called state regulators.
Walker doesn’t fit the profile of an animal rights activist. The central Iowa-raised truck driver, who jokingly refers to himself as corn-fed with beer running through his veins, is a fervent Trump and NRA supporter who has spent years working in the state’s maze of hog production facilities. He describes himself as independent-minded with libertarian instincts, with a bit of a contrarian side suspicious of organized power.
“I’m not necessarily animal rights by any means,” said Walker in an interview with The Intercept. “I have a cattle herd — small calf herd — and my wife and myself have some free-range pigs ourselves.”
“It was a moral issue at the heart of it. … I’m the kind of person who knows right from wrong. It was a principled thing.”
Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources, the local farm regulator, Walker felt, did not seem to care about his concerns over the phone or show any interest in enforcement on a company like Iowa Select. Iowa, followed by North Carolina and Minnesota, is the largest pork-producing state in the country and infamously deferential to industry. Iowa officials have faced criticism for failing to regulate concentrated pork facilities for water pollution and poor animal welfare standards.
Jeff Hansen, the founder of Iowa Select, built the pork powerhouse first as a salesman, helping distribute modern farrowing crates, automatic feeders, and other livestock equipment to other pig farmers in the state. He built two companies at once: a turnkey construction firm known as Modern Hog Concepts, which helped farmers upgrade their barns into modern factory farms, and Iowa Select, which raised pigs for slaughter.
Along the way, as he grew his business empire, Hansen built close connections with Iowa’s political elite. In 1994, during a cycle in which Hansen was one of the largest campaign contributors to then-Gov. Terry Branstad, he had set aside employee money for campaign contributions to local Republicans. The resulting scandal forced lawmakers to return campaign funds to Iowa Select, but the company continued to grow.
The owners of Iowa Select, Jeff and his wife Debra Hansen, are still among the largest campaign contributors in the state, and close to Gov. Kim Reynolds. A recent donation of $50,000 brought the total the couple has donated to the governor to nearly $300,000.
The governor has maintained cozy ties to Iowa Select. Shortly after her election in 2018, Reynolds volunteered to auction off her time as a gift to the Hansen family foundation. In the early days of the pandemic, her administration arranged a Covid-19 testing site at a corporate office used by white-collar Iowa Select employees and foundation employees, raising concerns with one Polk County supervisor of special treatment for the campaign donor.
And Kayla Lyon, who Reynolds appointed to run the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which inspects hog farms for compliance with animal welfare and environmental rules, is a former dairy industry official and agribusiness lobbyist. Lyon, in her previous capacity as an influence peddler in Des Moines, had worked to pass the 2012 “ag gag” law that criminalized recording at farm facilities, according to lobbyist disclosures. Lyon lobbied at a time when Iowa Select’s lobbyists in Des Moines pushed for the bill, records show.
The impetus for that bill, which was designed to criminally prosecute whistleblowers at factory farming operations, also started in part with Iowa Select. The year before the bill was signed into law, an animal rights activist group, Mercy for Animals, released an undercover video that showed Iowa Select workers ripping the testicles from conscious piglets, removing tails with dull clippers, and scores of sows in small confinement cages, appearing to suffer from untreated sores and other wounds.
The law, though later overturned by a federal court, was the first of its kind and rapidly inspired copycat legislation across the country.
Walker’s failed attempts to reach regulators, to report overcrowding in Iowa Select facilities, didn’t surprise him. “The DNR wasn’t very interested in talking about it,” said Walker. “They’re too big to be regulated.”
“There have been no recent enforcement actions against Iowa Select Farms. Nor are we aware of any complaints or allegations made to the DNR,” Alex Murphy, a spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said in an email to The Intercept.
Walker, aware that he had few outlets for help, turned to the internet to research whistleblowing resources for factory farms. That’s how he found Direct Action Everywhere, the Berkeley, California-based group that has worked to expose the shocking treatment of animals in factory farms.
More than 850 cattle that have spent months adrift in the Mediterranean are no longer fit for transport and should be killed, according to a confidential report by Spanish government veterinarians.
A lawyer for the cattle ship’s management company told the Guardian on Saturday that he planned to resist the move, even as a video from the port appears to show preparations being made to unload the cattle.
The report, compiled after Spanish officials were able to board the vessel earlier this week, said that the captain had told them of 22 deaths among the 895 calves on-board.
Another nine cattle were not accounted for, it said. The ship’s management said the calves, all bulls, are about seven to eight months old now.
The report concluded that the animals had suffered from the lengthy journey and were generally in a poor state. Some of them were unwell and not fit for transport outside of the European Union, nor should they be allowed into the EU, it said. Euthanasia would be the best solution for their health and welfare, it concluded.
The animals were rejected by several countries over fears they had bovine bluetongue virus. The report did not say if the cattle had bluetongue disease but it noted a range of other skin, eye and leg conditions including alopecia, flaking, scabs and joint inflammation compatible with septic arthritis.
The lawyer, Miquel Masramón who represents the ships’ management company, said on Saturday that it appeared preparations to kill the cattle were being made at the port. In a video Masramón sent to the Guardian, a metal ramp can be seen leading down from a ship toward a series of metal containers lined up along a dock wall.
The lawyer said the ship’s managers will attempt to resist any move to unload the cattle and that he is in the process of contacting Lebanese authorities.The vessel is owned by Khalifeh Livestock Trading and managed by Talia Shipping Line, both based in Lebanon, while the cattle are owned by a third party.
“In the video you see the closed containers, they are not for living livestock,” said Masramón on Saturday. “We have no official information, but we think they will discharge the animals and then kill them with electrical guns.”
He added that blood samples taken from the cattle on Wednesday night by Talia Shipping Line, to test for a bovine disease called bluetongue, had been blocked at the port by Spanish authorities and were not allowed to proceed to a lab for analysis.
The insect-borne bluetongue virus causes lameness and haemorrhaging among cattle but does not affect humans. The Spanish ministry’s report counted 864 animals alive on board the Karim Allah this week. Twenty-two cows had died at sea with two corpses still onboard, it noted, adding that the remains of the others that died were chopped up and thrown overboard during the journey.
Spain’s agricultural ministry did not reply to a request for comment on Saturday.
Masramón previously told the Guardian the shippers aimed to resell the cattle outside the EU if they tested negative for bluetongue. Talia Shipping Line estimates that current losses on the cattle transport could be up to €1m. Spanish authorities have said the company was also liable for the cost of killing the animals and destroying the carcasses. The company estimates this will cost them a further €1m.
“We are trying to resist, if they take the animals, and to get a new private expert animal health report,” said Masramón. He added, however, that if Spanish authorities were to remove the animals on health grounds they would probably succeed.
“In my opinion the animal health regulations will prevail [over maritime ones] and they, [the] Spanish officials, will be able to take the animals and cull them,” he said.
Masramón said although he was not an animal health technician, he did not agree with the official Spanish veterinary report released on Friday. “From what I understand, none of the diseases [noted in the report] are worth euthanizing the cattle for. They are normal after two months at seas and the animals could recover.”
In an interview, a source close to a second cattle ship, the Elbeik, which has similarly been at sea for two months since leaving the Spanish port of Tarragona with a cargo of nearly 1,800 cows, said he was watching the Karim Allah developments closely.
The Elbeik is currently moored off the Turkish Cypriot port of Famagusta having loaded animal fodder and straw. The source said that once the loading was complete, the Elbeik would probably sail to Greece to load bunker fuel for the ship.
Asked about apparent moves by the Spanish authorities to begin unloading and killing the cattle, the source said the health problems identified by the official Spanish vet report could “easily heal”. He said the decision, if taken, to kill all the animals was “amazing”. He added: “If the animals can heal why would they want to do that?”
There is an old saying which goes “a picture says a thousand words”. Have a look at these 2 pictures of the ‘Karim Allah’: are they not fairly indicative of the majority of the live animal transport maritime situation now ? – rust bucket ships that should have been scrapped years ago still transporting innocent, sentient beings to their (often) barbaric deaths the world over.
Have a look at this picture – this is Mr Bernard Van Goethem.
Here below is the (link for the) organizational chart for the Commission of Health and Food Safety – Sante. Mr Van Goethem is the ‘leader’ responsible for ‘Crisis Preparedness in Animals’, which includes ‘section G2 – Animal Health’. You can see all of this on the right hand side of the chart.
Health and Food Safety Organizational chart link –
In 2015, the European Commission launched a three-year Pilot Project aiming at improving animal welfare during transport by developing and disseminating Guides to Good and Best Practice for the transport of the main livestock species.
In September 2017, the contractor of the project published five extensive guides to good practices (only in English) as well as 17 technical fact sheets focusing on the most practical information in A4 format. Fact sheets are available in eight EU languages (English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Spanish).
This publication is followed by a road show in eight Member States and presenting the guidelines to the professionals concerned (transporters, drivers, farmers, official veterinarians, etc.). The project will also produce five videos (one per species in eight languages).
Council Regulation EC 1/2005 defines the responsibilities of all actors involved in the transport chain of live animals entering or leaving the EU. It lays down efficient monitoring tools and stricter rules for the transport and for the specific checks to be carried out by officials. It also provides for non-discriminatory inspections of animals, means of transport and accompanying documents.
EU countries are required to submit to the Commission, by 30 June each year, an annual report for the previous year on the non-discriminatory inspections together with an analysis of the major deficiencies. Click here to access the annual reports.
In order to reduce the administrative burden on EU countries, Commission Implementing Decision 2013/188/EU, which came into force on 1 January 2015, established an harmonised model form for the annual reports.
We at WAV, as of 28/2/21, make the following statement: Is the situation where hundreds of live EU animals have been stranded in the Mediterranean on 2 different ships not a ‘crisis’ ? – and should we have not seen intervention by the EU ‘Crisis Preparedness in Animals’ team, led Mr Mr Van Goetyhem, on this issue several weeks ago ? If this is not a crisis, then what is ?
If the EU crisis team are not going to get involved and take action at times of a crisis, then what is the point of them even existing ?
As you can see from the various EU links above; they at EU Commissions are specialists at blowing their own trumpets; leading the reader / web site visitor all over the place to find information (or maybe confuse them !) on their highly constructed, expensive, and detailed website; (at EU taxpayers expense); in some wildly bland attempt to make the reader think that they are completely and utterly in charge of the situation when it comes to controls and regulations for the welfare of animals in transport.
Well they are not – the website and all the sub sections and statements are simply massive smokescreens because they, the EU Commission, are utterly incapable of having any controls over the international situation of ensuring live animals welfare during transport throughout the EU, and way beyond into third countries such as Turkey and Libya.
This was in relation all those years ago to the EU having no control of the welfare of animals during transport; here is a video produced at the time to show that:
Here are a few other links we published on this issue at the time:
So what changes over all these years at the EU ? – very little it seems. Plenty of waffle; plenty of PR; plenty of web news; people are doing this, and people are doing that; when in reality, nothing actually changes for animals in transport.
As you can see in the above links, in the past we have called for the resignation of Mr Van Goethem; we think that with these terrible situations over the last few months and not a whisper from the EU on the crisis from the crisis management section of the EU Commission; maybe it is time to get another petition underway calling for resignations due to incompetence. When we get this organised we will publish.
Regards Mark
Latest news:
Saturday 27/2/21:
More than 850 cows that have spent two months at sea on a ship crossing the Mediterranean are facing slaughter, following a report from Spanish vets.
The cattle have suffered “hellish” conditions, according to animal rights activists.
The Karim Allah vessel originally left the Spanish port of Cartagena to deliver the cattle to Turkey but were refused entry due to fears over bluetongue.
The insect-borne bovine virus causes lameness and haemorrhaging among cattle but does not affect humans.
After being turned away from Turkey, owners failed to find a new buyer for the animals.
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The ship was subsequently rejected by several more countries, even to replenish animal feed, leaving the cows to go several days with just water.
The ship became a pariah vessel and it has now returned to its starting point in Cartagena.
The confidential report by Spanish government veterinarians and seen by Reuters says the animals have suffered from the long journey and should be killed.
While it did not confirm whether the animals were suffering from bluetongue or not, it said they should not be allowed into the EU.
Ownership of the cattle is unclear.
Animal rights activist Silvia Barquero, director of the Igualdad Animal NGO, called the crossing “hellish” for the cattle and questioned what had happened to the waste produced by the cows during the crossing.
“We are sure they are in unacceptable sanitary conditions.”
Twenty-two cows are believed to have died at sea, and while 20 of the corpses have been chopped up and thrown overboard, two dead cows remain on board.
A lawyer representing the ship owner Talia Shipping Line, which is registered in Lebanon, said he believes the slaughter will now definitely go ahead.
Meanwhile, a second ship, the ElBeik, which also set sail from Spain in December with a cargo of nearly 1,800 cows, is currently moored off the Turkish Cypriot port of Famagusta.
The agriculture ministry has been approached for comment
A new investigation from Animal Equalityexposes the abuses and crimes of India’s fishery and aquaculture sector and shows the inefficient use of precious resources, like water and land.
THE DETAILS: Animal Equality investigated several Indian fish and shrimp farms, hatcheries, and fish markets from Feb 2019 to May 2020 in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, which are known for their fish production. The cycle of cruelty seems to never end, with our team witnessing fish suffering in a variety of ways.
One particularly brutal practice is “fish milking,” an extremely painful process in which the eggs from a female fish are squeezed out by hand. In another, farmed fish are killed by asphyxiation as workers pull them from the water and put them on ice to slowly and agonizingly suffocate to death. Our investigators also found:
-Thousands of fish bred in small, overcrowded ponds, which are prone to disease spread.
-Many fish crushed to death by the weight of other fish when they’re caught in nets and dumped into containers.
-Workers cutting the gills of fish without prior stunning, resulting in the animals bleeding to death.
-Some species of fish, like catfish, are slaughtered and sold at unsanitary markets.
-Conscious catfish clubbed several times in an effort to slaughter them.
-Children were seen slaughtering fish, which violates child-employment laws.
WASTED RESOURCES: Fish farms need an exorbitant amount of water for operation and pump out large quantities of groundwater, which comes from nearby rivers, leading to drastic reductions in the region’s water table. In addition, fishery and aquaculture farms require large tracts of land in areas with an abundance of water, reducing the agricultural yield from these sectors.
Cattle stranded at sea ‘face immediate slaughter’ if ship docks in Spain, says manager
Cattle onboard the Karim Allah in Cartagena in a photograph taken on Wednesday by a crew member.
Livestock company still hopes to find a buyer for animals on board ship for two months, after rejection by Turkey and Libya
The manager of a ship that has spent months at sea with hundreds of cattle on board has accused Spanish officials of failing to answer his call for help and of threatening to kill all the livestock if the ship enters port.
The Karim Allah is one of two vessels that left from different ports in Spain before Christmas to deliver cargoes of young bulls, but were refused entry by various countries including Turkey and Libya, owing to suspected outbreaks of the bovine disease bluetongue onboard both ships.
The vessel is owned by Khalifeh Livestock Trading and managed by Talia Shipping Line, both based in Lebanon, while the cattle are owned by a third party. The ship took 895 male calves on board at the Spanish port of Cartagena in mid-December and sailed for Turkey.
However, the Karim Allah’s manager told the Guardian that a mistake on the Spanish government’s animal health paperwork led Turkey to reject the cattle, fearing they may be infected with bluetongue.
Attempts to sell the animals to buyers in Libya also failed and the Karim Allah eventually travelled back to Spain. The ship has been docked just outside Cartagena since Sunday. Only 15 animals are dead, the manager said, and the rest are in good health.
“We remain at anchor outside Cartagena port because first the Spanish authorities told us we could not enter. That was on Sunday or Monday,” said Majed Eid, Talia Shipping Line director.
“Then the Spanish authorities said we could enter [the port] but that all the cattle – they are all bulls about seven to eight months old – must be slaughtered,” said Eid. There has been no mention of vets inspecting the ship or testing for bluetongue, he added.
“We do not want to slaughter the healthy animals. That is the proof of the good care we have taken, only 15 dead after more than 60 days at sea. We expected people to thank us, not criticise us,” he said. “We are crying out for help but the Spanish government is not helping us. No one is helping us.”
Blood samples being taken on the Karim Allahon Wednesday.
Eid said the cattle shipment first ran into problems in Turkey due to an error in the Spanish authorities’ paperwork. “That was why the cattle were not accepted in Turkey or Libya, due to fears they might have come from a bluetongue area.”
Eid said the priority was to test the cattle so healthy animals can be certified and new buyers found. “We want to do blood tests to prove they are free of bluetongue then we can find a buyer. We don’t want to kill healthy animals. We expected Spain would want to help us with the blood tests but they are not helping, it’s very complicated.”
Miquel Masramón, a lawyer for Talia Shipping, said that blood samples were taken by a private company from some cattle on the ship on Wednesday evening. “According to the vet team no symptoms of bluetongue were found and test result will be known in 24 to 48 hours,” he said.
Legal documents, received last week by Masramón from the Spanish Animal Health Authority and seen by the Guardian, say the cost of slaughtering cattle re-entering Spain in this situation must be borne by the companies involved.
If the animals are shown to be free of bluetongue it is hoped new buyers can be found.
Masramón estimates the cost of slaughter and carcass disposal will be more than €1m (£860,000). “This should be added to the losses already suffered with unpaid demurrage [a charge payable to the owner of a chartered ship on failure to load or discharge the ship within the time agreed] and expenses which we estimate now at another €1m,” he said.
Maria Boada Saña, a vet with the NGO Animal Welfare Foundation, said it was good news that so many cattle were still alive. But she said it was unlikely the animals were in good health. “They might not have bluetongue, but that does not mean they are healthy,” she said.
Boada Saña said she believed slaughter, rather than another attempted sale involving further sea transport, was a better option for the cattle. “We are calling directly for euthanasia. They have been adrift for two months. The [animal] transports we see might take a week or so and that already means the animals arrive in poor condition, so imagine two months.”
On Thursday, a spokesperson for Spain’s agriculture ministry said the Karim Allah was free to enter Cartagena if it wished, but would not comment on the legal documents sent to Talia Shipping indicating the cattle would have to be immediately slaughtered.
A second livestock ship, Elbeik, which left the Spanish port of Tarragona carrying 1,776 animals on the same day as the Karim Allah, is at anchor in Turkish waters off the coast of Cyprus. It too was turned away by Turkey and Libya due to bluetongue fears.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Spain’s agriculture ministry described the ships’ plight as a “failed operation by a Spanish exporter, who was going to sell the animals in Turkey, then tried unsuccessfully to sell them in Libya”.
The spokesperson added that the Karim Allah, “now arriving in Cartagena, left Spain with animals that had the corresponding health certificates and which were from areas free of bluetongue. The animals therefore left the port of Cartagena in good health.”
Masramón told Spanish media that the certificates noted that some of the cattle were from Aragon, one of the regions that saw an outbreak of bluetongue late last year. As it couldn’t be shown that the cattle came from a place that was more than 150km from the source of infection, the cargo had been rejected. He confirmed they had been able to obtain fodder for the animals in Sicily, but not unload them.
The ministry has said the Elbeik was also carrying cattle from bluetongue-free areas.
In a second statement on Thursday, the agriculture ministry said: “The master of the vessel Karim Allah has been requested to take appropriate measures to allow inspectors to board the vessel safely. This request has not been complied with by the captain of the ship by the deadline, which was today, 25 February, at 11am.”
It added that Spanish maritime officials have now, “prohibited the ship Karim Allah from leaving the port until the appropriate inspections and actions have been carried out on the vessel.”
Lets hope all business and Spanish authorities associated with this terrible suffering end up on the seabed; hopefully entombed in the rust heap of a ship that they use or are involved with. This is utter abuse and everyone should be punished for being dickheads.
In our latest investigation, Animal Equality has brought to light distressing scenes from a “farm of horrors” located in Catalonia, Spain, where the highest concentration of intensive pig farms is located.
THE DETAILS: The investigation’s footage shows the farm’s non-compliance with Spanish regulations for the protection of pigs in the country, with evidence found of sanitation irregularities, animal abuse, and possible environmental crimes.
Anita Krajnc, founder of Toronto Pig Save, and Joaquin Phoenix to attend a protest, September 2019-photo by Joanne McArthur
World Animals Voice 