Together with the Italian organisation Essere Animali, we inspect animal transports with lambs on the highways in Italy in the run-up to Easter. It's just before 5am in Udine. We've been watching the highway since nightfall. A truck full of baby lambs from Romania stops at a service area - the lambs' cries echo from the truck. It's cramped inside. The lambs have not been weaned and are still dependent on milk. They cannot get any during the journey, so they remain hungry. They have already been on the truck for 16 hours, with another 900km to go. We call the police and follow the transport towards a slaughterhouse in Bari.
After some time, a police patrol finally arrived and began the inspection. A vet was called, but he apparently refused to come. In his opinion, the transport was in compliance with the law and was allowed to continue. Again, the police have no experience of animal transport and agree with his assessment.
But we don't give up and, together with Essere Animali, we continue to put pressure on the veterinary authorities. Shortly afterwards, another patrol arrived on the scene, this time with a vet. She confirmed our assessment of the violations, ordered the lambs to be unloaded in a nearby shed and fined the transporter. During the inspection, we also found Lamberto lying exhausted on the ground. The vet took him out of the truck and examined him - he was dehydrated and struggling to breathe. Much to our surprise, she orders him to be handed over to us. While our team makes sure the truck is unloaded, the Essere Animali team looks after Lamberto and takes him to the vet. While his companions continue their final journey to the slaughterhouse over the next few days, he will be allowed to live on. Tears of joy for him - but bitter tears for the other baby animals.
During our pre-Easter inspections, we are reminded once again that while the law requires animal transport to be as stress-free as possible, the reality on the road is very different. Baby animals, who should be drinking milk from their mothers, are subjected to journeys of up to 1,800 kilometres - hungry and frightened. The transporters usually get away with it because the authorities look the other way or are inexperienced. We will continue to report on their suffering, complain and campaign for the animals - until hopefully one day these transports are a thing of the past.
