Live export report 'damning'

28 August 2007

By Rosslvn Beebv
Science and Environment Reporter, Canberra Times

Heat stress and blood poisoning from leg injuries caused by cattle slipping on floors "sloppy" with urine and faeces caused a high level of deaths on a recent cattle shipment to the Middle East, according to federal quarantine reports.

Australian Quarantine Inspection Service investigations into high death rates last year on five Australian livestock shipments detailed outbreaks of infections diseases, a shipment of feral goats passed off as farm-bred animals, severe injuries caused by falls on slippery decks, overcrowding, and insufficient or poor quality feed for livestock.

Blood poisoning caused by leg infections accounted for 59 per cent of deaths on one cattle shipment to the Middle East and "shipping fever" - acute pneumonia caused by stress during transport - also caused high mortality among cattle.

Executive director of animal we]- fare lobby group Animals Australia, Glenys Oogjes said the reports provided "damning evidence" of continuing breaches of Australian Live Export Standards on live export ships.

"The Australian public is continually told by the live export industry that Australia has the strictest live export standards in the world.

What we aren't told is that these standards are regularly being breached, that animals are suffering and dying as a result, without exporters being prosecuted or penalised," she said.

Reports on the five quarantine service investigations were obtained by Animals Australia under Freedom of Information and posted on their website.

As a result of information contained in two of the reports, the group has lodged animal cruelty complaints with the Department of Local Government and Regional Development in Western Australia.

An investigation into the deaths of 247 cattle on board the MV Maysora during a 25-day voyage to the Middle East reports infected leg injuries and recumbency (cattle unable to stand) occurred within several days of the ship leaving Fremantle, and remained a significant problem during the voyage.

Most of the cattle died of septicaemia from infected leg wounds, exacerbated by prolonged sitting or lying on abrasive, wet flooring on six of the seven decks on the ship.

Animals Australia claims conditions on the Maysora breached seven Australian live export standards, including safe carriage of livestock, insufficient bedding and failure to treat or euthanise injured animals.

After the deaths of more than 1600 sheep on a voyage from Tasmania to Kuwait, the investigation concluded Tasmanian sheep had "greater problems with heat stress" and were "not as adapted to adverse climatic conditions experienced crossing the equator as sheep sourced from the mainland".

Stock workers also had to ration feed for the sheep during the final days of the voyage because insufficient supplies had been loaded.

Inspectors also found a shipment of feral goats were "not conditioned" to eat pellets or to eat from feeding troughs.

A report for the live export trade's peak body Livecorp, says the industry created more than 11,000 jobs for rural Australia.

Livecorp chief executive Cameron Hall estimates live exports were worth $100 million to both Queensland and Victoria and about $490 million to Western Australia.