Animals’ Angels inspects a sheep transport from Bulgaria at a Turkish border control stable. In Bulgaria 249 very pregnant sheep were loaded, but meanwhile the transport consists of 369 animals, as 120 lambs were born during transport. Some of the newborns that were born on the truck died even before their arrival at the Turkish border control stable, others were born there. Little lamb Mikael is particularly weak, he cannot stand up and his body is hypothermic. The Animals’ Angels team tries to warm him up and to give him some milk. Slowly Mikael recovers a bit. Transporting animals in advanced pregnancy is strictly forbidden in the EU. Regardless, this transport went through two veterinary inspections in Bulgaria without a veterinarian stopping or taking action against the illegal transport. Apparently the authorities in Bulgaria were not interested in the fact that the animals on this transport were being subjected to incredible suffering and some of them even died during the transport because of the illegal conditions. For years numerous animal welfare organizations have been advocating for stricter inspections of export transports and the EU Commission has received numerous complains about transports from the EU into Turkey. This example once again shows that after 20 years of animal protection regulations in the EU there is no hope for stricter inspections. The only solution for getting this serious animal welfare problem under control is a drastic reduction of the transport time to a maximum of eight hours.<link http: www.8hours.eu _blank external-link-new-window>
