Australia closes sheep port after more deaths
Date: 02-Oct-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
Around 2,400 sheep died on board the vessel Al Shuwaikh, or 3.08 percent of a cargo of 75,000 to 85,000 sheep bound for the Middle East, Agriculture Minister Warren Truss and industry body LiveCorp said.
It was the fifth shipment in the last three months to record unacceptable losses of more than two percent, Truss said.
"The recent spate of deaths is intolerable and the government expects immediate action to ensure animal welfare standards are at a consistently high level," he said.
The moratorium, on shipments from the port of Portland in Victoria state, would last until the end of the northern hemisphere summer at the end of October, LiveCorp said.
LiveCorp Chief Executive Kevin Shiell said the deaths were caused by a combination of stress at Portland feedlots which caused early mortalities, a failure to eat syndrome which affects a small proportion of animals on any shipment, and heat stress in the Middle East.
The recent voyage of the Al Shuwaikh had been allowed to go ahead only after extra conditions were imposed by the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS), including a requirement that a government vet accompany the voyage, Truss said.
The Independent Reference Group (IRG) would reconvene this week to advise on ways to improve the live trade's animal welfare record, Truss said.
The IRG is chaired by Australia's chief veterinary officer, Dr Gardner Murray.
COMPUTER MONITORING
Comprehensive risk management practices were being progressively introduced covering heat stress issues for each consignment, Shiell said.
A computer model had been introduced to monitor voyages, taking account of types of stock, characteristics of the vessel and its ventilation system, time of year, weather conditions from the beginning of the journey to its end, sea surface temperature and stocking densities, he said.
The model would use actual real-time data for temperature and ventilation information where possible, and monthly averages for temperatures and wind speeds and other data, he said.
"They can actually draw the graphs (of) the critical temperature of the animal and all the other variables (to produce) graphs that cut at a level that's going to cause mortalities," he told Reuters.
"I'm very confident that this is a major step forward in the industry's ability to manage those heat stress risks that we encounter in the northern hemisphere summer," Shiell said.
Australia's fast-growing live cattle and sheep export trade, worth a total of A$910 million ($492 million), involved 826,000 cattle and 6.8 million sheep in 2001.
A series of deaths at sea of both cattle and sheep in recent years has aroused strong opposition to the trade from animal rights groups in Australia, Britain and elsewhere, with some campaigning for live exports to be banned.
In mid-July, Australia placed export bans on some breeds of cattle from southern ports after the death at sea of almost 900 cattle on a new state-of-the-art live trade ship, the MV Becrux, during its maiden voyage to Saudi Arabia.
