On Wednesday afternoon, an Animals’ Angels team waits at the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for the arrival of a ship transporting live animals from mainland Spain.
Seven livestock trucks reached the port of Cádiz in southern Spain on Saturday morning to board a ferry to the Canary Islands. Due to a technical failure and strong winds, the ferry was only able to leave the port on Tuesday evening. This meant that the animals were confined inside the trucks for three days (not including the time already spent travelling from their original departure points to Cádiz) before beginning a ferry journey lasting more than 36 hours. Two Animals’ Angels teams were deployed on Gran Canaria and Tenerife to accompany the trucks to their final destinations.
In the early evening on Wednesday, two trucks loaded with calves leave the ferry. We follow them and, with great concern, realise that their ordeal is far from over. The mountain roads the trucks must travel are so steep and winding that the vehicles temporarily block traffic in some places. After five days, the bedding inside the trucks is likely almost gone, and the floor is probably slippery with manure and urine, turning every curve into a torment for the animals inside.
After about 45 minutes, the trucks stop at an open area by the roadside. Two smaller vehicles are waiting there—vehicles not designed for animal transport. To our dismay—though, sadly, not to our surprise—the calves are unloaded from the original trucks and transferred into these smaller vehicles. This illegal operation lasts about 90 minutes. The transporters then drive the animals to a farm about 15 minutes away. The road leading there is so narrow, steep, and full of tight bends that it seems almost impossible that the calves could remain standing during the journey.
Current legislation sets a maximum transport duration of 29 hours for cattle. After that, the animals must be unloaded at an approved control post, where they are required to rest for 24 hours. However, from the time they arrived at the port of Cádiz until they were unloaded at the farm, these calves spent more than 100 hours inside the trucks—likely even longer, considering that the journey to Cádiz from their original departure point probably took another one or two days.
A joint press release by Animals’ Angels and ANDA, denouncing the delay at the port of Cádiz and calling for the establishment of a suitable unloading facility in the port area near the Strait of Gibraltar, has already appeared in Spanish media and is available on our website.
