Our team is trailing two trucks with cattle over 1.500 km, from the Smolensk area via Moscow to Samara, in the Southeast of Russia. The goal is to observe the compliance with EU Regulation No. 1/2005 concerning the required resting and feeding intervalls.

The traffic along the route is insane and so are the drivers of the trucks we are following.…

Only one truck with animals crosses the Turkish border today. It is loaded with young bulls from Romania. They are unloaded at a nearby stable to be watered and fed for a few hours. The animals are very thirsty and immediately start fighting for access to the water trough.

In the late afternoon, our team crosses the border in order to check if…

The weather forecast predicts temperatures of 39°C at the Turkish border for today. This is the first day since we started observing this border in 2010 that we do not see any animal trucks crossing the border. We are satisfied that finally our minimum demand that no animals are transported in hot weather is fulfilled, at least for today.

Our team starts to inspect animal trucks from the EU entering Turkey at the border of Kapikule. Close to the border crossing, we see young bulls with Austrian ear tags in a private stable. For one day, they have been stuck inside the border and for another one at this stable due to problems with their documents. Six other trucks with Austrian…

Whilst inspecting the market in Bodzentyn we notice two cows with overgrown hooves. Many animals are not sold and are going back to the farms because of the low price for bovines. The market gets empty before 8 AM. The situation is similar in Lagow. Here as well, the trade ends very early. It looks like animal markets in Poland might be about to…

Today, our team receives information from the Ministry of Agriculture in Hungary that animal transports from and through Hungary to Turkey will be banned from 21st of June on in case of extreme summer heat along the route to Turkey.

This is a great success of our work during the last years, where we informed Ministries about the tremendous…

The number of horses at the Bodzentyn market remains quite constant around 20 animals. As usual, most of the horses are bought by an Italian trader. We do not see any injured or sick animals. However, some mares have slightly overgrown hooves.

On the cattle market we see a lot of veterinary inspectors including regional veterinary officers and…

The urgent need for action concerning the export of bovines to non-EU countries is discussed at an information event by the German party "Alliance 90/The Greens" under the leadership of Bernd Voß (Member of the Landtag Schleswig-Holstein). We report on the situation of certain non-EU export routes and inform about inspection reports published by…

Whilst inspecting the cattle market in Lagow, our team notices a cow with overgrown hooves. We are taking photos and writing down the ear tag number. In the meantime, the trader who bought the animal to the markets starts yelling at us. The Veterinary Inspector sees the whole situation and decides to thoroughly inspect the trader`s documents and…

Our Farm Animal Service (FAS) team visits the farm in Wola Zamkowa again to check on the lame mare. So far, we do not see any progress. This is our fourth visit in total. Because our latest treatment does not work, we decide to look deeper into the hoof. Finally, we find an abscess located almost one centimetre underneath the hoof sole. We clean…

Every year before Easter, Italy imports tens of thousands of lambs for slaughter, mainly from Romania and Hungary. AWF|TSB teams check on the transport conditions, supported by the Italian animal welfare organisation ENPA. We inspect a total of eleven trucks, three of them together with the Italian police. All three are in breach of the EU animal…

The national competent authorities of Poland and Hungary respond in a very positive way to our handout about sheep transport.

Based on our experience and legal knowledge, TSB|AWF prepared a document summarising the most frequent violations found during the transport of sheep, especially lambs. In 2018 and this year before Easter – peak time…