Our project manager Iris Baumgärtner gave the aspiring veterinarians in their ninth semester at the University of Leipzig's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine an insight into animal welfare work. In an online lecture, the students learned about our main areas of focus, how we work, and what it takes to become involved in animal welfare.

The students…

Over the last few days, we have been traveling between Slovenia and Italy to inspect lamb transports. We checked a total of 9 trucks transportig lambs and two trucks transporting bopvines. Apart from minor violations—such as insufficient ceiling height or drinking troughs that are unsuitable for lambs—we did not find any serious violations. This is…

Together with 35 other animal welfare organizations, we are calling on the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to finally introduce binding international regulations for animal transport ships. The reason for this is the increasing number of incidents and an aging fleet of animal transport ships. This endangers animals, people, the…

Together with several European animal welfare organizations, we have lodged a complaint with the Irish Minister for Agriculture. The reason for this is further documented violations of EU Regulation 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport and of the relevant ruling of the European Court of Justice on the export of breeding animals…

It was a horrific journey for 2,900 Uruguayan cattle. After a month at sea, they remained locked up on board the livestock vessel “Spiridon II” in Turkey for another 23 days due to problems with the import papers. It was a serious failure on the part of all those responsible, and as is so often the case, innocent animals were the ones who suffered.

The animals' suffering continues: after being stuck off the Turkish coast for weeks and not receiving permission to unload, the Spiridon II has now set course for Uruguay again. For the nearly 3,000 cattle on board – half of which are pregnant – this means another month crammed onto the ship. Food and water are scarce. Most, if not all, of the…

Our team traveled to the Turkish-Bulgarian border to check whether there are still problems with animal transports there. We also met with border veterinarians to learn more about the situation on the ground. Because there were several serious incidents last year involving weeks of waiting, it was particularly important to conduct another…

For the second time in just four weeks, our team has documented calf transports at a collection point in Germany, near the Dutch border. Every week, two to three livestock trucks depart from there, loaded with up to 700 unweaned calves. Most of the animals are taken to fattening farms in the Netherlands.

Some of the transports continue on to…