UK animal export study reveals "sickening cruelty"
Date: 16-May-03
Country: UK
Author: Michelle Green
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) also urged the British government to change domestic laws, insisting that animals be slaughtered at home before being transported to the continent.
"With ten million livestock moved by road every week in the EU, the potential for suffering is immense," said Dr Julia Wrathall, the RSPCA's deputy head of farm animals.
"A huge body of evidence shows that even healthy animals can suffer serious stress, dehydration and fatigue in transit."
An RSPCA report published this week details a catalogue of cruelty, including sheep found dead and dying after a nine-day journey across Europe.
Undercover teams also witnessed a calf being shoved into a closed storage unit underneath a lorry and a cargo of sheep left in the sun for hours while temperatures soared.
Tens of thousands of sheep are transported from Britain to mainland Europe for slaughter every month.
Although movement of live animals is generally more expensive than trade in carcasses, some countries prefer live exports because they have different slaughter methods and ways of presenting the meat.
But critics say animals are exposed to stress and suffering on long journeys, during which laws are regularly flouted.
"What is the point of moving livestock, often across several countries, just to slaughter them at the end of the journey?" Wrathall said in a statement.
"Animals (should be) slaughtered as close as possible to farms and only transported over long distances on the hook, not the hoof."
Britain's animal health minister Elliot Morley says European laws requiring the free movement of goods, including livestock, means the answer lies in tightening welfare provisions.
But while the European Commission has admitted that current laws suffer from poor enforcement, proposals for change - first mooted in 1998 and expected last month - have been postponed.
