A 1979-built livestock carrier has entered the Mediterranean, cruising aimlessly around southern Europe, awaiting new orders having been barred from entering Ireland.
The Sarah M was due to arrive at Greenore port on Ireland’s northeast coast on April 30 to collect cattle for export. However, the ship had recently been classed with the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping and so was subject to European Union sanctions, something the NGO Ethical Farming Ireland alerted the authorities to, leading to the ship’s entry into Ireland being barred.
Ethical Farming Ireland has been making shipping headlines this year. The NGO wrote to the Irish agriculture minister Charlie McConalogue in February demanding changes to the way animals are exported by sea following a joint investigation with the NGO Israel Against Live Shipments where the health of animals is checked at the point of departure and on arrival.
“Poor nutrition, overcrowded pens, stress, lowered immunity and humidity will all have contributed to rapid spread [of ringworm] amongst the young bulls,” the letter stated.
They should all be banned.
A total disgrace and shame to any company or who permits such a trade in this day and age.
Live export is causing unimaginable suffering to millions of innocent defenceless animals annually. It should have been banned years ago.
Disgraceful trade ….what has happened to man’s conscience!!!
In Australia, too, many people are disturbed and angry about the total lack of any real care by farmers selling their animals this way and the appalling conditions aboard the live animal transports.
Thank you Sam, for giving prominence to this appalling instance of the cynical abuse of seafarers, perhaps culminating in loss of life. We should set this against the much-vaunted “Happiness Index” , created to sustain the illusory self-image the industry likes to point to. Why does Liberia allow such a ship and owner to stain its ship register.? (Does Liberia care?) Liberia and a host of similarly indifferent registries that are obviously only in it for the tonnage money. There exists a black-list of seafarers that operators can refer to to keep ‘troublemakers” off their ships. So how about a black list of owners that registers will undertake not to do business with? And insurers? And host ports? And shippers? It is all possible. Is it that difficult to close the net around these owners and make their cynical, inhuman depredations impossible? I completed my M.Sc dissertation on the violation of human rights at sea in 1983, l’m not proud to say it was, and is, the sole academic treatment of the topic in the history of the world. And nothing changes. The abuse goes on. IMO passes the MLC, but who is enforcing it? Port State Control’s net is widening, but l see no wholesale sea-change in the patterns and trends l identified 40 years ago.
Sorry Sam. I wanted to comment on the cattle ship too, but it swallowed my comment and dumped the foregoing comment to a different article. Grovellingly sorry! Please delete this comment to this story. I guess the first didn’t survive. L’ll give it a few hours and try again. It began..”Lucky Cattle, to be so cherished.”etc
Lucky cattle, to be so cherished! But how, l ask, are the human beings aboard the ship faring. We read nothing of them. Did the Irish PSC and marine safety inspectors pay the ship a visit? If the conditions for cattle on board were so unacceptable, what were the conditions for people? The Antigua-Barbuda flag is another flag of convenience. The government wants the tonnage-money, but not the burden of overseeing how the ship is operated. And shame on the the Russian government for allowing such a ship to be classified with its Russian Maritime Register of Shipping. After 45 years of operation is this ship really sound, and fit to encounter the seas to be encountered across the world’s oceans?
Lucky cattle?? I hope you’re not being serious. What a ridiculous comment!!!!!
It was an ironical comment, and actually truthful in this case. The focus WAS on the cattle, and no mention was made of how the crew were being treated. If you have any familiarity with the inhumane treatment of seafarers, you would see the irony of it. But l suspect you know nothing about the operation of ships, and only came into it for the cattle. A crazy world!
No these ships will be full of Asbestos for a start
Probably true, which will raise problems for the workers where it be dismantled. It’s lasted long enough. Time to scrap it before it breaks up and sinks, taking cattle, asbestos and crew to the Otto,.
You are 100% correct Capt. Colin, The crew must definitely also be considered. I sailed on 57 voyages as a veterinarian carrying livestock from Australia to the Middle East, Russia, Turkey, North Africa etc and the crew work under very stressful, dangerous and dubious conditions. Long hours, poor pay, potential noxious gases, heat stress and a depressing workday of dismembering and throwing dead animal bodies to the sea. Their treatment and pay does not in my opinion compensate them for the work they do. It is a trade that most wish did not exist. Especially when the export of chilled and frozen meat is so much more preferable. The crew and animals deserve better.
All live exports should be banned.
Ireland is a disgrace with anything got to do with animal welfare all over the country.
Hopefully they find another suitable ship in the near future for this very important trade.
Important trade 🤣🤣🤣 for who .To make 🤑out of defenceless animals.
We hope not ,its not a trade it murder of innocent animals .
Live animals shouldn’t go on any ships ,end of
Disgusting cruel and vile Trade more like
Not live export , no need we have freezers
When will people understand how important food chain supply is for world hunger.
Once again farmers will be faced with another attack on their livelihood and be burdened by a handful of ideologies while consumers will be forced to feed families with less choice and higher prices
There is no justification to inflict fatigued,/diseased anti biotic filled animal flesh onto the ‘poor’ under the guise of world hunger ‘aid’. I was the Vet on 57 of these voyages and poor people are better off eating anything else, be it plant protein or imported chilled /frozen meat. Live exported meat is something I would never eat when I was travelling in live importing countries. Think scientifically and sensibly and stop listening to minority agricultural propaganda for a dying trade.
Has Ireland only bunny huggers left?
Where is this country going???
The “bunny huggers” comment is so old. If you absolutely have to eat a dead piece of animal, can’t it at least be treated humanely until it it is killed for it’s flesh? How about slaughtering your pet dog and eating it? Or putting it in a cramped cage for weeks and then slaughtering it? Humane, no??