During road inspections on the highway A 30 nine animal transports loaded with Turkeys, chicken, pigs, calves and horses are inspected. A transporter is on the way to The Netherlands to load mink for a mink farm in Greece. There are concerns about the crates and loading conditions and thus we inform Eyes on Animals (NL), who right away send a team…

The police in Osnabrück has invited neighboring police inspections and official veterinarians to a training on animal transport. Beside the expert on animal transport Dr. Alexander Rabitsch, we are invited to share our observations and findings on long distance transports.

Near the Biomega blood farm, a group of 300 mares is moved by two gauchos on horseback on a stony gravel road. They are on the way to a nearby pasture. The horses’ condition is variable: some look healthy, on first glance, and have an adequate body weight, while others are extremely emaciated. The horses have neglected hooves, some with cracks, and…

From 8:15 until 10:30, more than 200 pregnant mares go through the blood extraction procedure. They are moved through the raceways and into the restraint boxes by brute force. The mares are hit with iron hooks, including on their heads, and poked in sensitive body parts. Wooden sticks are also used. Once they are inside the restraint box, the…

The blood extraction starts at 8:15 in the morning. Blood is taken for 6 to 13.5 minutes from the pregnant mares. The handling by the employees is extremely unprofessional and cruel. Different objects are used to force the horses into the restraint boxes: long wooden sticks, short pointed sticks, ropes and rubber strings. The mares are…

During the weekend the temperatures are rising up to 37 degrees Celsius. Our team colleagues from the Bulgarian side are reporting one animal transporter after another entering the border. As a result, we are busy inspecting about 70 transports during these 3 days. Most of the animals are coming from Slovakia and Czech Republic, but also from…

For several years now TSB|AWF teams have been documenting systematic breaches of the Regulation (EC) 1/2005 during transports to Turkey in the hot summer months, resulting in extreme animal suffering. Fortunately, this time our teams are accompanied to the Bulgarian-Turkish border by a Member of European Parliament and a German official…

Thanks to our undercover team, we observe the loading of the animals on the “Britta K” vessel. This time, the loading is done in a professional way. However, most of the animals will suffer as a consequence of the long journey by the sea in bad conditions. For this reason, AWF|TSB will continue observing and denouncing these horrible export…

Today is time to inspect the situation in Tarragona. Our team waits the whole day for the arrival of the vessel “Britta K”, which is coming to load cattle from different countries from Europe. We know this Lebanese vessel quite well from previous investigations, and we know its reputation of not being really “friendly” in respect to animal welfare.