WAV Comment: 

Wow! – that’s breaking news – the wonderful EU struggles to hold member states to account for animal transport breaches.  What with all the evidence we have presented to them; the very them; regarding breaches of transport rules over the last 25+ years; what is changing ?

As we have always said, they are utterly useless’ and as Claire Bury says; they (EU) are not able to ban the trade.  Why not we ask ? – could it be the big money made from live exports into EU coffers ? – ie putting finance before animal welfare ? – certainly seems that way.

And now we hear MEPs ‘voice concern’ about the injury and suffering caused to animals during transport across Europe.

We say; put them all into one livestock transporter and haul them from Scotland to Southern Italy.  We bet the rules would be changed pretty quickly after that.  As the EU can do nothing; probably better to shut it (the EU) all down and go back to individual member states and regulations. 

Anything would be better than this ‘we can do nothing’ yukspeak put out by EU ‘importants’ (or so they think they are !).

EU struggles to hold Member States to account over animal transport breaches

30 October 2020

MEPs voice concern about the injury and suffering caused to animals during transport across Europe.

A senior commission official has admitted it is currently “impossible” to ban the controversial trade in live animals.

Speaking to parliament’s newly created special animal welfare committee, Claire Bury, Deputy Director-General of Health and Food Safety at the Commission, sympathised with MEPs who voiced concern about the injury and suffering caused to animals during transport across Europe.

She said everything was being done to ensure hauliers comply with current regulations but conceded, “We are not able to ban this at present.”

But, in response to growing calls for a ban on exports of live animals, she revealed that the Commission plans to revise existing legislation on animal transportation.

Read more at source

The Parliament Magazine

New analysis of live export ships shows there is still a high risk to animals – SAFE

29 October 2020

New analysis from The Guardian has found that live export ships are twice as likely to be lost at sea as cargo vessels.

SAFE Campaigns Manager Bianka Atlas said the growing evidence supports what SAFE has been saying for years.

“It is clear that the live export trade places the lives of animals and humans at an unacceptable risk,” said Atlas

Livestock carrier Yangtze Fortune is expected to arrive at Napier Port on Wednesday 4 November. This is will be the first export of live animals since the sinking of Gulf Livestock 1 in September.

The Yangtze Fortune’s arrival next week is estimated and subject to change, but the animal rights organisation SAFE will be protesting regardless.

“It’s only been two months since we lost 5,867 cows and 2 of our own people in the Gulf Livestock 1 tragedy and now we have another ship leaving from that same Port,” said Atlas.

“The reality is, all of these animals, who are exported for breeding purposes, will eventually be slaughtered in their destination country, potentially by methods outlawed in New Zealand.”

“Ending live export should be at the top of Jacinda Ardern’s agenda when she forms her new cabinet.”

Click on this link for the Guardian article:

https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2020/10/29/live-animal-exports-exclusive-livestock-ships-twice-as-likely-to-be-lost-as-cargo-vessels/

Above – Carcasses line a beach after a livestock carrier loaded with 5,000 cows capsized at Vila do Conde port in northern Brazil in 2015. Photograph: Reuters

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/28/exclusive-livestock-ships-twice-as-likely-to-be-lost-as-cargo-vessels

Exclusive: livestock ships twice as likely to be lost as cargo vessels

Billion-dollar export trade puts lives of animals and crew at greater risk of ‘total loss’ through faulty design and inexperience

Ships carrying live animals are at least twice as likely to suffer a “total loss” from sinking or grounding as standard cargo vessels, the Guardian has found.

In the past year alone there have been two disasters involving animals in transit. Last November, at least 14,000 sheep drowned after the Queen Hind capsized en route to Saudi Arabia from Romania. And last month, Gulf Livestock 1, a carrier transporting almost 6,000 cattle, sank off the Japanese coast en route to China from New Zealand. Forty crew members remain missing and are presumed dead.

“With the Guardian’s shocking findings … [it’s] time for an open and honest assessment of an industry that has caused one crisis after another,” said Prof Kristen Stilt, director of Harvard’s animal law & policy program, currently writing a book about the transport of live animals. “That assessment should recognise that the transport of chilled and frozen meat is the way that nearly all meat travels in commerce today. The idea of sending live animals is a holdover from a bygone era.”

The global live export trade is worth nearly £16bn. For decades, campaigners have been calling on the EU to provide better protections for animals in transit, and an inquiry into the regulatory system is under way.

According to Guardian analysis, between January 2010 and December 2019 five livestock vessels were recorded as lost to sinking or irrevocable grounding, killing crew and animals. The total equates to just over 3% of the estimated 150 livestock carriers above 100 gross tonnes (GT) known to operate worldwide. The 100 GT measurement is used by the shipping industry to separate smaller vessels, often owned for pleasure, from larger, more probably commercial, ones.

The same loss calculation for the global cargo fleet of about 61,000 ships over 100 GT, shows that 471 vessels within that tonnage (excluding tugs, dredgers, fishing and passenger vessels), were lost to sinking or grounding in the same period – or less than 1%.

The Guardian’s risk calculations are based on historical data from insurer Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty’s Safety and Shipping Review 2020, analyst IHS Markit and the International Maritime Organization.

If the loss figure for livestock vessels expands to include two more vessels, sunk in December 2009 and September 2020, just outside the 10 years covered by the Allianz shipping safety report, used as a basis for the calculation, then the figure rises to 4.7%.

Select Page 2 below to continue reading more.

The implementation of a new law that would have reduced the number of cattle permitted on live export ships sailing from Australia has been put on hold.

Key points:

• A change to animal welfare laws that would mean fewer livestock on vessels has been delayed
• Exporters and former Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie have questioned the science behind the new rules
• ·         The RSPCA has rejected those concerns, saying the “science is clear”

Days before new animal welfare laws were expected to come into effect, Agriculture Minister David Littleproud has changed the rules to allow exporters to continue to load cattle at existing stocking densities.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment said Mr Littleproud had decided to make last-minute amendments that would be in place until April 30 next year.

The decision comes after changes to the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock (ASEL) were announced in April following a Federal review sparked by footage of the Awassi Express carrying dead and distressed Australian sheep to the Middle East in April, 2018.

The new ASEL stocking density rule was expected to come into effect on November 1 and would have required more space to be provided for each head of cattle exported.

The ABC understands the changes announced today only relate to cattle and do not include sheep.

The Australian Livestock Exporters Council said the changes amounted to a 17 per cent increase in the space allocated for cattle.

In the case of exports to Indonesia, for example, a vessel that would typically carry 5,000 cattle would be reduced to carrying 4,300.

The Northern Territory Livestock Exporters Association (NTLEA) told ABC Rural the reduced stocking density rules had been “tweaked” and would not apply during a trial period.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-27/live-exporters-win-reprieve-on-new-stocking-densities/12817910

‘Audition period’

NTLEA chief executive Will Evans said the reprieve would allow exporters to prove that current stocking densities were delivering good animal welfare outcomes.

Mr Evans said the industry had been told by the Government that the new stocking rate would not be imposed for at least six months, and exporters that maintained low mortality rates would be allowed to continue to export at a higher stocking density.

“It’s essentially an audition period,” Mr Evans said.

“Those exporters who have a rolling average of 0.1 per cent mortality rate or lower will be able to maintain the [current] stocking density.

“But those who don’t will need to go to the new ASEL 3.0 stocking densities.

“So for the next six months, you’ll be able to maintain access to current stocking densities.”It gives us a period to prove what we’re saying is true.”

ASEL 3.0 changes coming to live export industryDownload 4 MB

Bulk of recommendations to be adopted

Despite the last-minute change to stocking densities, Mr Evans said other significant changes to the way live animals were shipped under ASEL would commence as planned on November 1.

“Out of the 49 recommendations, one of those was about stocking densities,” he said.”The other 48 recommendations are coming into effect next week. “So there will be changes to how many stockmen are on vessels, changes to bedding, changes to the time we have cattle in registered premises.

“It’s an enormous regulatory change that’s coming in next week, it’s the biggest regulatory change to the industry since [the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System] in 2011.”

Cattle exporters had previously suggested introducing the changes would cost the industry as much as $40 million a year.

Former minister questions science

At a Senate Estimates hearing last week, former Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie said the new ASEL stocking density was based on “loose science”.

Speaking to officials from the Department of Agriculture Water and Environment, Ms McKenzie said the change would mean as many as 130,000 fewer Australian cattle were sold into South East Asia.

“There isn’t a robust body of science available to us right now to be making these decisions,” she said.”[The standards are] not fit for purpose, for our industry, our place in the world, our markets.” The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which has lobbied for an end to the live export trade, described Ms McKenzie’s appearance at Estimates as disappointing and feared a potential policy shift.

“The science is clear around stocking density reduction for cattle on these voyages,” RSPCA spokesman Jed Goodfellow said.

“This is simply about giving animals a little bit more space so they can lie down during the voyages, which sometimes take over two weeks, to give them further space to access food and water troughs.

“I hope Minister Littleproud will stand strong on these reforms that he himself has overseen and introduced.”

Mr Littleproud’s office has been contacted for comment.

New investigation reveals the systematic disguise of routes for live transport of German calves to the Middle East

28 October 2020

Animals International

An investigation carried out by Animals International and Animal Welfare Foundation (AWF) and broadcasted by SWR reveals that despite the current ban in place, German animals end up in Third Countries’ abattoirs. Eurogroup for Animals urges the EU to stop the export of animals to non-EU countries and to prepare a strategy to shift to meat/ carcasses only trade.

New footage from Eurogroup for Animals’ member Animals International filmed the brutal slaughter of German cattle in a Lebanese slaughterhouse. The two cattles identified in the footage were just three weeks old when they left their farms of origin in Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg.

The export of cattle to third countries has been largely debated in Germany for many years and the majority of federal countries suspended the long-distance transport to a number of nineteen third countries. However, the transport of live animals from Germany to third countries continue taking place: Indeed, to overcome the restrictions mentioned above the transport routes are very often disguised: the new footage by AWF shows calves being transported on short journeys from Germany to Belgium via a collection point in North Rhine-Westphalia, and then transported via France to Spain, where they were fattened and later shipped to Beirut.

This new investigation also shows that, despite the fact Germany claims of not exporting animals for slaughter to third countries, its animals do end up in third countries abattoirs. In 2019 Animal International entered a slaughterhouse in Lebanon, showing how animals coming from the EU were brutally handled and killed.

Eurogroup for Animals and its members urge the EU to stop the export of animals to non-EU countries, and to prepare a strategy to shift to a meat and carcasses and genetic material only trade.

Read more at source

SWR