Today a team of inspectors from TSB|AWF and our partner organisation, Eyes on Animals, from Holland arrives in Istanbul and drives to Kapikule at the Bulgarian/Turkish border. During one week we are going to inspect animal transporters bringing in animals from the EU to Turkey. While driving north on the highway, we observe 22 animal trucks passing…

We participate in the transport guide project that aims to develop and communicate Good and Best practises for the transport of farm animals. These practises will be presented in Guides which aim to promote animal welfare during transport.

The first draft of the Guidelines have been prepared by a consortium of different stakeholders and research…

Since 2010 we have been documenting the extreme suffering and death of farm animals being exported by truck from all over Europe to Turkey. This route is a long and complicated one regardless of what time of the year it takes place. But the summertime is the worst, because the temperatures at the EU/Turkey border reach 40 degrees and there is no…

TSB|AWF and our pratner organization Eyes on Animals, together with three Italian animal-rights lawyers working on the case for us, had our meeting last Friday with Mr. van Goethem and his team from the European Commissions Crisis management in food, animals and plants about the on-going suffering and death of animals being exported from the EU to…

Together with Eyes on Animals (Netherlands) we are invited to the SANCO training in Poznan to give a speech on our perspective on long distance transport of animals. In our joint presentation we focused on the main areas of concern during long distance transport and our initiatives to improve animal welfare during transport. Many animal…

We follow a long-distance transport of lambs from a sale in southern Poland to a slaughterhouse in Italy. The truck carries 700 lambs and is loaded on four decks. The headspace is insufficient and several of the taller animals touch the ceiling with their heads. The lambs are of different sizes and ages. We assume that at least part of them are…

We follow a long-distance transport of unweaned calves from an assembly centre in the north of Poland to three different fattening farms in northern Italy. The calves are approx. four weeks old. Many are from Lithuania and have already been transported for several hours before being reloaded in Poland. On the way to Italy, the calves are not…

Our team visits the Skaryszew Horse Market that takes place once per year and hundreds of horses are sold for leisure, breeding and slaughter. We are interested in assessing the transport conditions of the horses to and from the market.

Many horses arrive already on Sunday afternoon and are left in the vehicles until the market opens finally at 11…

Today, our team waits at the Lithuanian/Polish border for a truck of a German transport company, which we know transports unweaned calves from Lithuania to Spain. It is snowing heavily and the temperature is below zero. We observe eight animal transporters crossing the border, but none of the German company. At 3:00 at night, after waiting for 17…