Live Animal Export: An experimental double take as the Bahijah tries again

Dr Lynn Simpson, a well-known former live export veterinarian, on the long journey ahead for thousands of animals heading from Australia to Israel via the west coast of Africa.

This past weekend the Dareen rounded Yemen within missile range, then passed the Rubymar as she slid under the sea forever after being hit by missiles weeks ago. She finally passed through Babel Mendab within waving distance of shore and the Houthi nilitia, while carrying about 26,000 Australian sheep, permitted by the Australian government. 

Allowing thousands of unconsenting live animals to risk missile strikes and any subsequent injuries or deaths during these uncertain, escalating times of conflict is risky, irresponsible and foolhardy. As if to tempt fate the Australian government has decided to take an extra gamble with thousands of animal lives and allow the Bahijah to reload in Fremantle to try again to reach Israel. The Bahijah has already had one failed attempt this year culminating in over 40 pointless, stressful, fatiguing days at sea for nearly 17,000 animals that entered the live export chain of accumulative stressors in December last year. 

The ship and all surviving animals returned to Fremantle and were unloaded.

Australia is unfortunately a gambling nation and this behaviour is not limited to onshore casinos, nothing appears safe from the lure of making money. One must wonder, is the government just giving the trade ‘enough rope’ and planning to use the next impending disaster as the final catalyst to legislate and end date for this trade? Are they that devious?

The animals have no choice whether they are part of this game. They are clearly bred to be killed and eaten. The sensible and most humane practice would be to slaughter and process them as humanely as possible, as close as possible to the farm to which they were born. This business model provides greater regional Australian jobs, animal welfare security and less international public relations nightmares that live exports are so well known for. Local, domestic processing is what happens to the extraordinarily vast majority of animals produced for food in Australia. The frozen and chilled meat export industry completely dwarfs the draconian and cruel live animal exports by sea. No refrigerated shipping containers ever make the news. Live sheep exports by sea made up less than 0.1% of agricultural exports from Australia in 2022/2023. We do not need it.

Reports from industry stating that left over animals from the first failed voyage of the Bahijah have already been happily purchased by local processors puts to bed all the farming fearmongering of there being no capacity to have these animals slaughtered in Australia. This also brings into question the veiled tantrums being spread about left over Bahjah sheep having to be shot by the feedlot workers and whatever warped guilt trip that was meant to elicit. Remember these animals are destined to be killed, the question is where?. It does not happen magically, either a responsible farmer will humanely shoot animals with no financial value or future, or more commonly a professional slaughterman will. Keep a thought for the person who shot and processed the next meat pie or chop on your plate. Killing animals is not a unique emergency measure brought about by perceived interference by animal advocates. Animals are deliberately killed and eaten every minute of every day in this world. 

Being shoved on a ship to suffer a voyage first is not saving them from death. It is simply compounding the longevity and extremes of stress, fear and suffering experienced to get to the point of death overseas.

Live shipping also puts into question the quality of the meat for human consumption.

The animals from the Bahijah have been given 16 days on shore to rest and recover from their initial voyage of 40 odd days. Having done thousands of post-mortems at sea, seen the discarded/ rejected carcasses and organs in the Middle Eastern slaughterhouses and having had pneumonia myself in the past – I guarantee that 16 days is not sufficient to recover any afflicted animals that were unloaded.

This time, apparently 14,000 sheep and approximately 1,000 cattle are to be loaded. Meaning a few thousand were left behind. Why? Did the government insist on such a big reduction in stocking density? Were so many sheep now carrying wool greater than 2.5 cm that they were at too high a risk of heat stress? Many sheep trucked to port this weekend appeared to have rejectable wool lengths and none appeared freshly shorn.

If so why the disparity between species? Or, have many shown clinical signs consistent with commonly found shipping-related diseases and failed rejection criteria, no longer considered to be ‘fit to load’… or have many died?

Anyway, none of our business, nothing to see here I guess. As long as the Bahijah gets to Israel without passing through the Red Sea due to its Israeli affiliation they can give it a red hot go apparently. We will possibly never know the true outcome as it is highly unlikely that an independent observer was allowed to travel on this trip. 

The new route will involve at least 33 sailing days (does not include loading and discharge days) nipping around the south, west and north coast of Africa and traversing the length of the Mediterranean from Australia finally destined for Haifa on April 5. Ashdod Port is within range of Hamas rockets. Eilat Port is at risk from Houthi missiles and in 33 days will Hezbollah be raining down rockets on Haifa Port? So many unnecessary risks being taken it defies belief.

As with all voyages, especially extended long-haul voyages, animals only have a fighting chance of surviving if they begin the voyage in peak health. I am deeply concerned that the very epitome of the experimental nature of this back-to-back extended long-haul voyage will test many. I suspect the physical and psychological capacity for many of these animals to safely endure yet another extended long-haul voyage by sea will have been depleted. I fear many will suffer and die due to their existing fatigue, compromised immunity, subclinical disease/s, along with the usual challenges a voyage poses to animals of communicable disease such as pneumonia. 

This has never been done before, and for good reason – animals suffer and die on ships. The unwritten mantra of live exports is, ‘more days, more deaths’.

Had the exporters original wish been granted and they were allowed to return to Fremantle in February to top up fodder and continue on towards the Cape of Good Hope my calculations tell me the voyage would most likely have been considered a high mortality voyage before they hit Cape Town.

After these animals completed their first voyage, the mortality rate including land-based animal deaths immediately post-forced discharge sat at:  

• Sheep: 70 dead (64 onboard, 6 directly after unloading) – all export voyage related.
  • Below the 1% legally allowed before a government investigation is triggered.
• Cattle: 11 dead (4 on board 0.18%, 7 directly after unloading)- all export voyage related.
  • Mortality percentage = at or around 0.5%, the magic number that triggers an investigation by the government.

However, I suspect the semantics of ‘on board’, ‘on land ‘differences were applied… or the reality was not considered by the government? Don’t be fooled, all deaths were voyage related – animals commonly die during discharge and subsequent trucking movements- the accumulated stress catches up with them.

My question to the government: is the exporter allowed to reset the death toll of this attempted export consignment just because they have had 16 days on land? I hope not.

The Australian government sets the limit on how many animals can legally cark it during a voyage before anyone really takes notice- It is all very nonchalant. 

Unless you are one of the individual animals checking out.

Many a thing in our modern world is considered legal but is not widely considered right. These draconian practices need challenged and banned.

Now we have 15,000 animals heading off to try to complete their extreme long haul accumulative voyage/s of well over 70 days at sea, providing no weather, mechanical (propulsion, steering, water production or ventilation failures) or piracy challenges emerge. 

The ships do not provide a thermostatically stable environment as some espouse. The ships do not have air conditioning. They rely on ambient temperature air being pumped from outside the ship into the decks by fans. Therefore the temperatures and humidity’s fluctuate regularly, and not often in favour of life. Humidity is often very high along the west African coastline and the trajectory is more northerly than crossing the Indian Ocean, so the equatorial challenges strike more quickly. 

Anyone who tries to tell you these ships provide a stable thermal environment have either never left the superstructure, never done a voyage or should promptly get their passport and travel more so they can back up their statements with first-hand global experience.

Likewise, anyone who naïvely thinks that Australia choosing to ban the export of sheep by sea is increasing animal welfare issues globally, under the distorted and poorly thought out decries that Australia makes animals suffer at a more acceptable level than other countries, must get themselves a world map. 

They can then take into account that other countries with potentially lower standards are a  lot closer to the end markets than Australia. If we free up the ‘better’ ships for their use they can carry animals the much shorter distance (about 12 hours (0.5 days)- not our 16 days) from east Africa across the red Sea to Saudi for example negating many implied issues. 

Increasing availability of ‘better’ ships, filling markets seeking protein with chilled and frozen products from Australia would likely drive the scrapping of many older decrepit vessels and leave a net global welfare gain. The animals that the Middle East actually wants are sheep breeds directly from North Africa, they are already heat acclimatised and generally experience much less heat stress and exposure to disease during shorter voyages than our Australian sheep. That would be a net welfare gain. Our flawed, and often ignored regulatory processes such as Australia’s Export Supply Chain Assurance Scheme (ESCAS) do not protect animals enough.

Thinking that poorly regulated, long voyages will always provide better welfare outcomes because we have regularly ignored, written legislation is most definitely the perverse opinion here. 

I have watched many, many livestock ships unload after the relatively quick hop across the Red Sea and the animals would certainly beat our sheep in a foot race and general health check.

Any of the Bahijah’s animals that make it to Israel then face the experience of fully conscious Shechita slaughter to be considered kosher. Any un-stunned slaughter is cruel. The cattle get an added torture of being put in a rotating metal slaughter crush and being flipped upside down first to facilitate easier access of the slaughterers blade to the throat (Shechita inversion boxes are banned in Australia and many other countries by the way). Insult to injury, almost literally- kosher slaughterhouses have notoriously high carcass/ organ rejection rates (some studies I regrettably read, stated up to 70%) due to finding lesions of organs and meat, especially respiratory lesions indicative of pneumonia. Pneumonia is the number one killer of sheep and cattle at sea with many of the survivors of a voyage having lower grades of the disease and varying severity of lesions, some minor, others look like tough boiled steak dipped in custard. Respiratory lesions would be common in live exported animals.

Rejected carcasses/ organs are considered non-kosher and are either buried or sold for non-Kosher consumption. 

Imagine spending well over 70 days living in your own excrement on a hot humid ship deck only to be killed like this? Look up Shechita slaughter if you want. There are many videos and ‘how to’ pages. Warning, you won’t like it. 

You will however ask yourself why this relatively tiny industry is not replaced by refrigerated meat transport. Live export will be remembered in history as one of humankind’s and shipping’s most shameful atrocities.

This entire consignment scenario is a disappointing chapter for the government regulated welfare of Australian animals.

For Lynn Simpson’s full archive of shocking exposés into the livestock trades, click here.