Every year before Easter, Italy imports thousands of lambs for slaughter. Our team has been investigating the trade and violations against animal welfare during transport for half a decade. Together with the Polish animal welfare organisation, VIVA, we started a trial in 2018 against the organiser of one of these transports and the official…

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…

Our team is investigating fattening farms in the Spanish region of Lleida. This is also where unweaned calves from Germany are transported. After six to ten months of fattening, these calves are exported to countries outside European Union by sea. 

On the first investigation day we spot a calf outside the fattening farm pen. The calf is lying in…

Another setback regarding our long-standing research on the transport of calves:  In a verdict form 9th of December 2019, the district office of Ravensburg was asked to approve a transport of 149 calves from the German town Bad Waldsee to Spain. The district office has denied to approve long-distance transports of calves with reference to the "Live…

In November and December 2019, transports of unweaned calves to Spain are not approved in the German state of Baden-Würrtemberg due to transport restrictions. However, our team reveals that calves are still being transported to Spain via assembly centres. This practise is also referred to as "assembly centre hopping".

Calves from Southern Germany…

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…

In a report by the Friedrich-Löffler-Institute (FLI), Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, the license for a special vehicle for the long-distant transports of so called unweaned calves (2-8 weeks old) was denied. This vehicle type is equipped with pivot drinkers which were supposed to ensure that calves are provided with the supplies they…

The German Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Julia Klöckner, asked the Bavarian State Minister for Enviromental and Consumer Protection Affairs, Thorsten Glauber, in a letter to stop long-distance transports of unweaned calves from Bavaria to Spain. 

Julia Klöckner strongly emphasises in her letter that there are no…

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…