It only takes one dog with heat stress in a locked hot car for a cruelty prosecution...whether the dog lives or dies. Yet exporters are allowed to load 60000-100000 sheep on a ship and expose them to heat stress, summer after Middle Eastern summer, and its fine....
VALE has always maintained that a major failing of the law relating to live export (unlike Australia's domestic law) is that it takes no account of the suffering of the animals involved. It only counts dead bodies. And even then, there is no requirement for the government to prosecute or even investigate. Reporting of a high mortality event is mandatory....investigation by the government is discretionary. See the government sanctioned, legal cruelty of the Australian live export trade...tonight....60 Minutes. See preview
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“My concern is that the vessel may have been too heavily stocked on previous voyages,” wrote Narelle Clegg, an assistant secretary in the Ag Department’s Exports Division.
Oh really? Your Department's investigation report into this voyage assures the world that the vessel was stocked according to ASEL specifications....ie the usual 0.31 square metres for a 47 kg sheep..... This was the same Department that allowed the downgrading of the actual mortality numbers on this exporters previous horror voyage....and VALE has YOUR letter telling us why the downgraded figures are to this day, still considered OK on the official Federal parliamentary report.... This is what it is like Ms Clegg.....the Department has condoned this stocking rate since the start of trade, .....the Department has colluded with exporters and yes, the Department is complicit in all this. No surprise that the Minister didnt want to be interviewed by Liam Bartlett. VALE Spokesperson Dr Sue Foster spoke extensively on ABC News Mornings 6.4.18 with Joe O'Brien. Sue laid out the hard scientific facts about live export....published scientific facts .....about heat stress on live export voyages.
See the interview (go to the 32 minute mark). The space allowance for sheep on a live export ship has not changed since 1983. Thats right... unchanged for 35 years despite the industry and government telling us they are improving animal welfare.
By law, a 47kg adult merino sheep on a ship gets 0.308 square metres! Industry are falling over themselves to offer a generous increase of 10-15% ie 0.34-0.35 square metres. Come on guys.....the public arent stupid. When they see that footage, they are going to know that it will matter not whether a sheep gets 0.31 square metres or 0.35 square metres....they still wont be able to get to food or water and they still wont be able to lie down....let alone cope with heat stress. VALE wants to thank the Minister of Agriculture for his response to the footage of live export voyages. We do however have comments....see our media page....
Exporters are one thing....regulators quite another. The regulators of this trade, the Department of Agriculture, have known of this for 40 years...and they have crucified every veterinary whistleblower from Dr Roger Meischke (1978) through to Dr Lynn Simpson (2012). If David Littleproud is serious..... In July 2016, it was the Al Messilah. In August 2017, it was the Awassi Express. Both carrying sheep from Fremantle winter to the Middle East summer. Both voyages with discrepant numbers. Both voyages catastrophic due to heat stress: 3.76-3.79% on the Awassi, 2.51-4.36% on the Al Messilah (depending on which government version is chosen). The cause: extreme temperatures and humidity…what a surprise.
The Department of Ag's investigation report for the Awassi Express makes sobering reading. Sheep experienced moderate to severe heat stress from Day 5 to Day 21 (16 relentless days). The graphs show that wet bulb temperatures were essentially >31ºC from Day 14 to Day 20 and on Day 18 (ie after 13 days of continuous heat stress), the wet bulb temperature reached a shocking 37ºC. The report states “individual animals identified as heat affected or bogged were removed into alleyways near ventilators”. Yep that's right, animals struggling to survive in critical conditions then had to deal with getting bogged. The report even describes why this happens. But sure, we care about animal welfare. No amount of space can save animals on these ships in the extreme conditions of the Middle East, conditions that are already worsening with climate change. The only thing that would save them is reverse cycle air-conditioning (and that’s certainly not going to happen). These voyages to the ME summer have to stop…see VALE’s submission to ASEL. After reading the most recent round of high mortality investigation reports posted on the Department of Ag (DAWR) website, it is clear that serious analysis of voyage reports is not being undertaken by the Department.
The Department's heat stress thresholds for sheep and cattle have remained unchanged since 2006 despite industry funded scientific studies that show that they are way too high. When the fundamental basis for analysis is flawed, it is no wonder the Department cant analyse likelihood of risk or assess the extreme suffering that occurs on voyages to the ME summer... VALE has written to the Chief Veterinary Officer. See: Letter to CVO See: High Mortality Voyage Report 69 VALE's submission to Stage 1 of the ASEL Review was simple....fix 5 things:
We insisted that voyages to the ME summer must cease if the next version of ASEL is to be credible in its attempts to address animal welfare. See: VALE Submission The latest report on the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System (ESCAS) reveals continuing systemic failures in regulating the trade: 514 animals, six major breaches in 3 countries (Israel, Malaysia and Vietnam and two critical breaches in Vietnam.
Recurrent theme: loss of control over the locations of the animals taken outside the approved supply chains, in some cases, right under the nose of the exporter's Animal Welfare Officer ("an out of control crowd event"). Recurrent offenders: one importer in Vietnam was suspended in 2015 only to be re-approved several months later despite major and critical non-compliances including supply chain breaches involving almost 2,000 animals, some of whom ended up in backyard abattoirs. And now...intentionally on-selling 309 cattle to China and ‘deliberately interfering with control and traceability systems at the feedlot by covering CCTV cameras’). And even now, the government are discussing re-approval....really? ESCAS is there for a reason....because Australian animals, exported live, are consistently and repetitively abused in foreign countries. Nothing can protect our vulnerable animals overseas....the evidence is there and the government needs to act. If the government is not going to ban the trade then it needs to ban all offending importers immediately and permanently for major and critical breaches. The government also needs to start penalising the exporters where appropriate (ie in repetitive non self-reported incidents). Difficult to believe that an Australian government would bend the rules to export to a country that has rejected our ESCAS. But sure enough it seems likely to happen.
The West reported that a trial shipment is likely to happen in July, arranged by Emmanuels. Yep...July, right at the height of the Middle East summer. One can only hope the WA state government might throw a spanner in the works?? See: https://thewest.com.au/politics/state-politics/state-government-to-probe-death-of-2500-sheep-on-live-export-vessel-al-messilah-ng-b88746025z. [Note: To the best of VALE's knowledge, the August 2017 extreme mortality voyage did not occur on the Al Messilah despite being reported as such in the article.] |
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