Believe me; as a welfare campaigner for all animals suffering live transport over several decades; Council Regulation 1/2005 of 22nd December 2004, has become like a bad rash throughout its entire existence.
From the start, it never worked. Over the years this document has been read, reviewed and checked over time and time again to see if we in welfare can gather anything with which to take prosecutions forward.
Other EU nationality versions can be found using the eur lex europa link given at the start.
This post is simply written to give everyone an insight into the ‘legal’ issues legislation wise if you want to take things further. Take it from me; there is a lot to absorb as you can see.
The new proposals being put forward now by some MEP’s fill me with dread – a new updated / revised version of 1/2005 should be being presented now to further help and further support ALL animals suffering the indignity of live transportation. 1/2005 has always been, and will continue to be a joke until it finally goes to that big trash basket in the sky. We as campaigners will all rejoice; but what will follow on afterwards with political point scoring now appearing to take priority over what should be animal welfare, science based fact ?
Please enjoy browsing the English version of 1/2005 from the above link.
Picture this, a cow doing what it is intended to do – grazing outdoors and feeding, yes, on grass.
Difficult to believe; but Sweden is the only country in the world where cows over 6 months old must be given the opportunity to graze outdoors in Summer. Is that not a sensible and logical thing ? – cows outdoors in the sun eating grass ?
Now this right is under threat as farming unions move TO LOWER COSTS.
The country’s unique grazing experience is being questioned by the Swedish Farmers Association and other bodies, who argue that this policy makes the rearing of animals in Sweden more expensive than in other parts of the European Union – the EU, thus reducing competitiveness; hence they want the legal settlement to be removed; thus allowing farmers to decide for themselves.
These demands have been picked up by politicians; Minister of Rural Affairs, one Peter Kullgen, has appointed an enquiry into ‘Strengthen competitiveness for food producers’. Kullgrens Party has for many years asked and petitioned the Riksdag to have the grazing requirement removed by law.
The requirement TO ALLOW GRAZING is very well supported by the Swedish public; 84% of Swedes believing that it is important for animals to move freely outdoors. In another study https://www.nature.com/articles/srep44953 it was fount that an overwhelming 95% believe that it is important, or very important, that cows are allowed to graze.
Several animal welfare groups are pushing hard to ensure the legislation is not repealed and that Sweden’s high standards for cows are maintained.
At the end of March, the groups shown with their logos above, held demonstrations outside the Swedish Parliament; in addition to handing over a petition signed by no less than 165,000 persons. The press and media have been very supportive, giving the campaign lots of air time.
Like the current live export issue at the EU Parliament, one has to ask if we are witnessing here again trivial political point scoring overriding proven scientific animal welfare science – we would suggest probably a big ‘yes’ !
We at WAV wish all of our Swedish animal welfare campaigner friends the very best with their campaign to defend the rights of Swedish cows – they have huge public support on their side, so lets hope things continue unchanged for the cows !
In a landmark decision, the Lahore High Court has declared the killing of all stray dogs, by shooting, poisoning or other inhumane methods as illegal and unconstitutional across Punjab.
Continue reading this landmark decision in full here:
I say ‘some’ in the heading; but will acknowledge there have also been some brilliant MEP’s fighting very hard in the defence of animals who are suffering during transport; one immediately springs to mind: Anja Hazenkamp – A Dutch MEP and true hero for all animals:
Those of us who have many decades of experience in investigating the immense wrongs of long distance live animal transport across Europe have always had a saying – ‘Crowd all the negative thinking MEPs together in a transporter truck; with temperatures exceeding 35 degrees; with them crapping and peeing all over each other – THEN SEE HOW QUICKLY THEY WOULD CHANGE THE LEGISLATION WITHIN EUROPE FOR IMPROVEMENTS !!’
Sadly; but realistically; you have to ask what planet some of these people are from; as over 3,000 amendments to the draft update of the Transport Regulation proposed by Members of the European Parliament (MEP) ARE CERTAINLY NOT looking at improving the welfare of animals suffering live transportation across the EU. MEPs represent you – EU Citizens; so are they not supposed to have a certain level of intelligence ?
Several negative thinking MEPs have put forward ideas and suggestions which would weaken or even remove laws that are grossly outdated anyway; and certainly NOT welfare supplements for the billions of sentients being hauled all over Europe each day. Some of the suggested amendments are so bizzare they should be up with the fairies; but they are not; these are proposals presented by some realistic members of the European Parliament.
The Transport Regulation was created over 20 years ago to ‘protect the welfare of animals during transport’ – it never did, and has never worked in the defence of animals – full stop. This chance to now rework the existing joke of legislation should be an ideal opportunity to make thing so much better; but we have some very serious concerns about some proposed changes being put on the table by some MEPs.
Here is just as one example – one of thousands of recent undercover investigations, here is where current legislation fails the animals. Please take note of stoppage time failures = meaning extensive additional suffering for the animals.
By bringing the policy in line with the latest welfare led science; as well as the recommendations by the European Food Safety Authority, and outlawing some useless, harmful and unnecessary practices, policy makers, the MEPs, could significantly improve the legislation for animals in transport; as well as eradicating the worst aspects of live exports. Unfortunately at this present time, this is not the way things appear to be currently going.
Of the most concern are that if voted on and implemented, in the final policy; some of the legislation would, rather then could, harm rather than help the animals.
Thin I am joking when I say this ? it’s no joke when animal suffering is involved;
The worst amendment put forward on journey times
Each transport journey should consist of multiple parts, EACH lasting up to 29 hours
Journey times for unweaned calves; lambs, kids, piglets and foals could last for up to 66 sixty six hours.
Transport is inherently stressful for any animal at the best of times, especially those in the early times of their lives. Numerous studies have shown that young animals being transported suffer more than than their elderly peers; as they suffer more due to higher stress and the inability to regulate their own body temperatures. Unweaned animals suffers more as they cannot reach; or are not familiar with drinkers carried of transporters. the only source they know is from their mothers.
Welfare organisations have always stated that journey times should last for a ONE OFF maximum of 8 hours for adult ovines, bovines and swine; and a ONE OFF MAXIMUM OF 4 hours for very young farm animals, which should also include all birds and rabbits.
The worst amendments put forward on extreme temperatures include;
Provisions to protect terrestrial animals in extreme road and rail temperatures SHOULD BE REMOVED !
Thermal provisions to protect the welfare of animals in containers; including birds and rabbits SHOULD BE REMOVED
Extreme temperatures, especially in Summer, is one of the biggest problems of the live export industry. Past investigations by NGOs have shown that temperatures inside trucks can reach 50 degrees C; leading to severe welfare problems; sometimes fatalities.
The EFSA authority recommends the implementation of lower maximum standards during transport; and that welfare organisations demand that specific species maximums must be defined by official legislation.
The worst amendments on space allowance include:
New space allowance provisions, written in line with recommendations by the European Food Safety Authority SHOULD BE REMOVED.
Animals usually suffer from a lack of adequate space during transport. This makes it impossible for them to lie down, move naturally or even move at all to reach essential drinkers. This incapacity exacerbates several of the problems animals already feel, including stress, exhaustion and dehydration.
Welfare science strongly suggests that species and category-specific space allowances must be set by law. Removing or weakening space allowances is clearly a step in the wrong direction.
Getting back on the right path.
The policy of updating the Transport Regulation should be to ensure better protection for all animals undergoing transportation, and not to make a bad situation even worse. MEPs need to unite; accept the latest welfare solutions to them; which is BASED ON SCIENCE. They need to accept the solutions to improve welfare rather then try to score cheap political points as the priority. Only then will the new legislation deliver what it was intended to do.
Further Information
EU based animal welfare anti live export campaign organisations:
Between 10 and 12 dogs a month are being handed over to Dr Mark Afua’s animal shelter in Lagos – Kelechi Anozia / BBC
Preye Maxwell looks distressed as he leaves his beloved dog Hanks at an animal shelter in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub.
Fighting back tears, he says: “I can’t afford to take care of him. I can’t afford to feed him the way he should be fed.”
His two-year old American Eskimo barks as his owner turns his back and walks out of the St Mark’s Animal Rescue Foundation in the Lagos suburb of Ajah.
Dr Mark Afua, a vet and chairman of the rescue centre, takes Hanks and puts him in a big metal cage – one of many in the single-storey building designed for dogs, cats, snakes and other animals.
Hanks wheels around in circles in his cage – and Dr Afua tries to calm the distressed fluffy-haired dog.
Mr Maxwell, an online media strategist, was recently made redundant. His job-hunting means he is never at home and so feels unable to look after Hanks.
“I’m trying to get whatever I have to do to survive. I don’t even have the time now [to look after Hanks] because I’m always out looking for jobs,” he told the BBC.
In Switzerland, animal welfare issues are mainly discussed with regard to wildlife, companion animals and so-called “farmed animals”. In doing so, we forget about the individual whose interests we neglect the most and who are hardly – if at all – protected by the law. We are talking about the “invisible” animals – pigeons, rats, bees and fish.
These animals are subjected to immense daily suffering. Pesticides strip bees of their navigational abilities; rats face an agonising death from rodenticides; sick pigeons lie lifeless on the streets of our cities; and fish are confined in aquaculture basins under conditions that would be deemed unacceptable even in factory farming.
Considering the capacity for suffering as a crucial moral criterion is the core concern of Sentience. Therefore, we believe that all these animals deserve more attention, consideration, and protection. To eradicate today’s injustices, we must, together with you, sharpen public awareness and advocate for animals’ interests in politics.
Even small changes – such as banning certain rodenticides or pesticides, maintaining pigeon lofts, and improving water quality in aquaculture – can improve the well-being of billions of animals. By signing our petitions today, you help bring political attention to the “invisible” animals.
The Royal Horticultural Society, arguably the UK’s foremost gardening charity, has had a change of heart when it comes to our garden gastropods and whether we should be poisoning them. But what about other animals deemed pests, or those who simply don’t have a convenient role or value in our human lives? Claire Hamlett discusses.
Whenever it rains and snails dot the wet pavements, I watch my step, often pausing on walks to move snails to a place of greater safety. But not everyone takes such care over the slow-moving molluscs. Indeed, snails and their bare-backed cousins, slugs, have long been considered the bain of a gardener’s life. If you search for them on the internet, many of the results are about how to kill them or get rid of them. Garden centres are full of poison with which to dispatch them (and any other creature that mistakenly ingests it). But the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is now trying to redeem its image by no longer classing them as pests.
The RHS wants gardeners to see the ecological role that slugs and snails play, including eating decomposing matter and being a source of food for animals including birds and hedgehogs. This change of heart is part of the RHS’s broader campaign for ‘Planet-Friendly Gardening’, which it launched last year. While it’s good that an influential organisation like RHS is moving towards a more compassionate outlook, it also feels rather like it is having to do damage control for the prejudice that it has helped to create against these creatures. The current RHS page on snails, which will hopefully get an update soon, leads with an accusation that they “can cause a lot of damage in the garden” and has a whole section on controlling their numbers, including with pesticides.
I do wonder why it took the RHS so long to start thinking about how it demonises species given that the serious trouble the UK’s wildlife is in has been known for many years. Now it has seen the light on slugs and snails, hopefully, it will soon also update its thinking or many other species it currently classes as pests, and work instead to educate people about their role in the ecosystem and how to keep a balance of species in gardens without resorting to chemicals.
Unfortunately, the murderous mindset that categorises some species as ‘pests’ does not end in people’s back gardens or with molluscs.
Foxes are not only hunted illegally across the countryside but are persecuted for living their lives in and around the grounds of schools and businesses, as well as in the parks and on the streets of our cities. Fox cubs orphaned after their mother was killed were also shot at a school in North London last year for pooping in the playground and supposedly posing a risk to pupils’ health. There have been fox culls in London, where urban foxes are a common sight, especially after the Christmas period when there is more rubbish left out on the streets for longer. One ‘pest-controller’ interviewed by the Evening Standard said he had shot and killed thousands of foxes over his 30-year career.
But with public pushback, sometimes foxes’ lives are spared. A cull of foxes on a London golf course was halted in 2020 after campaigners including Animal Aid urged the golf club to choose an alternative humane solution. In 2021, hunt saboteurs raised the alarm about a planned fox cull on the grounds of Coca-Cola’s factory in Sidcup. The soft drink giant apologised for the upset and promised to use a humane alternative.
Rats and mice are among the prime ‘villains’ of the animal world in the minds of many people. While it’s understandable to not want rodents living in your house (though I did cohabit with a mouse for many months without any problems), these creatures are subjected to some particularly gruesome methods of ‘control’. Traps set with bait snap their spines. Poison can cause internal bleeding or death by dehydration. Some kill the animals slowly over days. There are humane, no-kill alternatives, but poison and traps sadly seem to be the most popular methods.
Sometimes an animal comes to be considered a pest simply because it disturbs the neat and tidy aesthetic that people prefer. One recent story I found particularly disturbing was a Guardian feature on a man called Jason Bullard in North Carolina, US, who kills armadillos for money. Driven north by climate change from their native habitat in South America, people in North Carolina were so “perturbed at their lawns being torn up by the newly arrived mammals” that they started paying Bullard to hunt and shoot them.
All too often animals are demonised for simply existing and trying to live their lives. Animal behaviour expert Marc Bekoff argues that calling these animals ‘pests’ “devalue[s] them as if they’re non-sentient objects.” Animals often find themselves in urban contexts because humans have taken over so much of what was once their habitat. Sometimes they benefit from living near us, such as by being more easily able to access food and shelter. As Bekoff writes, what we need is a “culture of coexistence”, in which killing is no longer the go-to option for resolving our conflicts with other species. With advocacy from organisations like the RHS, perhaps hearts and minds can finally start to change.
This January, a 57-year-old man in Baltimore received a heart transplant from a pig. Xenotransplantation involves using nonhuman animals as sources of organs for humans. While the idea of using nonhuman animals for this purpose might seem troubling, many humans think that the sacrifice is worth it, provided that we can improve the technology (the man died two months later). As the bioethicists Arthur Caplan and Brendan Parent put it last year: ‘Animal welfare certainly counts, but human lives carry more ethical weight.’
Of course, xenotransplantation is not the only practice through which humans impose burdens on other animals to derive benefits for ourselves. We kill more than 100 billion captive animals per year for food, clothing, research and other purposes, and we likely kill more than 1 trillion wild animals per year for similar purposes. We might not bother to defend these practices frequently. But when we do, we offer the same defence: Human lives carry more ethical weight.
But is this true?
Most humans take this idea of human exceptionalism for granted. …..
World Animals Voice 