In June, one of our teams carried out an investigation into national animal transports in Spain – an area that receives far too little attention from both the public and the competent authorities. In the ‘farm’ animal industry, animal welfare is too often outweighed by economic considerations. Animals are transported to wherever they can fetch the highest price, even if this means considerably longer journeys. This is true not only for international transport but also for transports within a country. Adding to the problem is the fact that national animal transports are rarely inspected by the veterinary authorities and even less frequently by the police. The consequences are serious: overloaded vehicles, journeys carried out in extreme temperatures, transport times unnecessarily prolonged because of drivers' mandatory rest breaks or because animals are loaded the evening before departure, and, all too often, sick or injured animals on board.
Our findings in June confirmed exactly these concerns. The team documented overloaded poultry transports travelling in temperatures exceeding 30°C. They observed a supposedly short-distance cattle transport in which the animals were standing ankle-deep in a mixture of faeces and urine. They also encountered pigs suffering from severe heat stress while the driver was taking the legally required rest break. We have since reported our findings to the competent authorities, as well as to a transport company and a slaughterhouse operator. So far, no substantive response has been received. Only one official veterinarian referred us to the police, apparently overlooking the veterinary authority's own responsibility to investigate reports of potential animal welfare violations submitted by civil society. This response illustrates a much broader problem. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), transport is the most stressful and injury-prone stage of ‘farm’animal production. Yet animal transports continue to receive far too little attention from enforcement authorities. The reason is simple: inspections are time-consuming, labour-intensive and costly.
For the animals, however, the consequences of this lack of enforcement are severe.
Animals' Angels will therefore continue to closely monitor national animal transports, expose animal welfare violations, and persist in holding both the competent authorities and the transport industry accountable.
