Ramsgate has recently started allowing live Animal exports to Europe, this journey can take up to 70 hours by sea and then by land.
Guidelines to ease suffering are routinely ignored and some actually make the suffering of transported animals worse.
The act of loading and unloading these animals is horrendously stressful and causes additional injuries. Injuries include broken legs, broken pelvis's, broken horns and injuries sustained from being trampled on by other animals after collapsing from sheer exhaustion. Other symptoms suffered are dehydration, diarrhoea, blindness and malnutrition, but this list is by no means exhaustive.
The animals exported are often very young and only recently guidelines have been issued to ensure the navel of the animal has fully healed before transportation takes place. Many of the animals transported are calves destined for veal crates, meaning that their torturous journey has only just begun when they are shipped from Ramsgate docks.
Very often animals are deprived of food, water and space to move for the entire journey.
One of the reasons for live export is a marketing ploy to the consumer so that the animals can be sold as ‘locally reared produce ‘.
A universally accepted humane practice to minimise the suffering of animals is that slaughter should take place as near as possible to where the animals are reared.
If the animals survive the journey, the only welfare laws they have for protection is the nation they arrive in, which may or may not match our own.
Exporting animals while still alive is considered by many authorities as being wholly unnecessary and abhorrently cruel.
If you agree that the transportation of live animals should be banned then please add your name to this petition.
Thank you
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