Animals’ Angels inspects animal transports at the border-crossing station Kapitan Andreevo/Kapikule between Bulgaria and Turkey. All lorries which carry animals overland to Turkey have to cross this EU border. There are up to 21 trucks each day: transporters with cattle from Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic as well as sheep and lambs from Bulgaria. Some of the transporters with cattle have no automatic drinking system as required by law. A lot of the cattle cough and have a nasal discharge. In some lorries the litter is completely soaked with the faeces of the animals. Some other lorries carry lambs and sheep on four floors, which leaves no ‘head room’: the animals hit the ceiling with their heads and even their backs. This also leads to poor air circulation. Although these animal transporters are not meeting the animal transport regulations they pass the checks of the Bulgarian veterinarians at the border posts without complaints. Animals’ Angels will file a complaint and will continue to campaign for a limitation of animal transports to 8 hours. This would make long-distance transports to Turkey impossible.
