Live export tragedies at sea are man-made. This is again being demonstrated by the case Nader-A. At the beginning of September, around 800 young bulls were transported from France to Algeria on the vessel called Nader-A. The unloading of the animals was refused in Algiers due to a bureaucratic problem. After three weeks of wandering around the…

Almost three weeks ago, the animals were shipped from France to Algeria. There, the unloading of the animals was refused due to a bureaucratic problem. Since then, the bulls have been wandering the Mediterranean, penned up on a 45-year-old junk ship, the Nader-A. Up until now we do not know how many animals are still alive. We suspect that the…

Our team is in France for an investigation in the EU port of Sète. From this port, live animals from Europe are often shipped across the Mediterranean to the Maghreb states and the Middle East.

During our investigation, we document two animal transport ships in the port of Sète: ALONDRA (year of construction: 1995) and ETAB (year of construction:…

Our team is investigating in Belgium to monitor the transport of unweaned calves. The term “unweaned” is used to describe calves up to the age of eight weeks since these young animals are still reliant on milk.

On our first investigation day, we covertly observe how livestock trucks from Germany are delivering calves to a Belgian assembly centre…

We are invited by the Eurogroup For Animals, to participate in the hearing of the EU-Parliament on the implementation of the regulation on the transportation of unweaned animals. The hearing was held on Thursday, 28. November by the initiative Intergroup on the Welfare & Conservation of the Animals in Strasbourg.

Our team has been proving for…

A team from AWF|TSB and our French partner organisation Welfarm follows a truck that is transporting calves from Poland to Spain. The calves are younger than eight weeks and are therefore considered as unweaned. Three of them are just 15 days old. According to the EU animal transport regulation 1/2005, unweaned calves must be given liquid which is…

In the beginning of October, AWF|TSB team drives 1160 km for more than 22 hours, trailing a truck which is transporting young German calves from Bad Waldsee (south of Germany) to a calf assembly centre in Vic (northern Spain). The youngest calf is just 15 days old.As victims of the German dairy industry (the main European milk producer), thousands…

In the early morning, we are following the calf transporter on the highway A9 when the drivers stop near Nîmes. They say the inside temperature is 6°C. We check the animals with a flashlight and most of them are resting. The younger calves in the trailer look more crowded and some of them are stepping on each other. Some calves are coughing and…

Our team follows a long-distance transport from the calf market in Château-Gontier, France, to three different farms and an assembly centre in Catalonia, Spain. At the market, some pens are so crowded that only a few calves can lie down and rest. The majority of the pens have straw bedding, but several have no bedding at all and the calves have to…