Live Animal Export: Voyage to nowhere, with only deepening excrement to dine, rest and sleep in

The plight of more than 16,000 animals stuck on a boiling-hot livestock carrier for the past month has made headlines around the world. Dr Lynn Simpson, a well-known former live export veterinarian, writes for Splash on the tragic, aborted voyage of the Bahijah, pictured today off Fremantle.

With the world turning to faeces around us, why throw the dice to risk another calamity? There is no bon voyage here and no chance of an acceptable outcome for the animals. Processing in Australia after 29 days on a ship to nowhere or slaughter in Israel after a further 30 odd days added to and already extended voyage.

How has a 17-day, routine (risky) voyage, with 16,000 animals onboard turned into a potentially two-month long captive negotiation debacle? First step, callous greed.

The unique risks of shipping provide an element of chance and adventure to our lives, that’s why we humans are drawn to the sea, the money helps of course.

However, imagine if you were bred to be deliberately killed, hustled from truck to truck, driven to the water’s edge at the ‘end of the world’, then chased onto a great big noisy ship, held in a crowded pen and sent with 16,000 other bewildered and freaked out animal captives to cross the world by sea?

That pretty much sums up the live export trade.

The trade is globally infamous for its ridiculous draconian atrocities, inflicting trauma, suffering and death on untold numbers of animals daily, weekly, yearly. Mechanical breakdowns, life threatening environmental challenges with both heat and cold, intensive housing helping infectious pathogens spread from one captive animal to another and of course the geopolitical risks that are ever growing. Most of these things are uncontrollable, however all are avoidable. The live trade needs to stop and convert to a chilled and frozen meat trade only.

It was like the government employee with the rubber stamp, pictured the ship to be crewed by the Expendables. Captain Stallone, Chief Officer Statham. Were they picturing Dolph Lungren as Boson, wandering the decks armed to the hilt, appropriately soaked in sweat and the smell of excrement, busy with an inner monologue to the animals about lack of appreciation and not being valued as an individual? Closely behind ,a ‘put out’ Jet Li would be muttering to the animals about how no one on shore cares about any of them as he scoops more faeces out of the animal’s water troughs so they can drink less excrement contamination.

Of enormous concern to me and others, with no shortage of morbid bemusement, was that this ship, the Bahijah, has an Israeli company name painted down each side in 3 m tall letters, and some pretty colourful flares either side to help it stand out from the crowd. If that wasn’t enough to make any Houthi operative put down their RPG to google its provenance on their smart phone, then the fact that the company name Bassem Dabbah literally translating in Arabic to ‘ he who smiles slaughter’, may just have piqued their interest.

I couldn’t make this stuff up, Southpark possibly could.

The ship left Australia on January 5 heading in a straight line for the Gulf of Aden. Not too far out to sea her speed began to slow, around day 11 she appeared to stop mid-Indian Ocean. Questions emerged about unloading the animals in another nearby country, with very few people fully understanding how unlikely it was that any nearby Muslim country would be inclined to help out an Israeli company whilst shells and missiles were raining down on the Palestinian population trapped within the confines of Gaza with no means of escape.

Presumably, decisions were made to change course and avoid the Houthi risk. She then headed for South Africa, one of very few places in the world where the right size, shape and quality of fodder pellets could be sourced to enable the voyage to extend around Africa and keep all animals bellies full.

Alas, whilst on this course the South Africans had taken Israel to the International Court of Justice in the Hague with a legal application accusing them of genocide.

Of all the gin joints in all the world that was prepared and able to help them, it was South Africa, how awkward for the Bahijah’s owners.

The hearings were beamed to every corner of the globe. South Africa graciously agreed to receive the Bahijah, source and provide fodder; however more decisions were made. The confused little Bahijah did a sharp turn about and headed back to Australia under instruction from the Australian government, looking a little like a confused rabbit in the headlights.

Day 24 into a 17-day voyage, the animals were back where they started. The world expected them to race into Fremantle port and begin unloading to get some reprieve from the arduous confines and conditions they endured, as occurs in importing countries for all voyages. 24 days of living in hot, humid, crowded confines whilst living, eating, drinking, resting and sleeping in your own waste. They deserved a reprieve from those conditions.

Wrong, instead she sat at anchor for several days whilst speculations, negotiations and a literal heatwave hitting 44 degrees Celsius, brewed. In the early hours of today another live export ship was shuffled back to make room and the Bahijah poked her way quietly into Fremantle port under the cover of darkness whilst all the protesters and media folk slept. No one missed a thing. The animals are still onboard for their 29th day… of a 17-day voyage.

Their situation has not improved. Any animals experiencing illness, or injury is still on deck. Any mortalities since approach to Australian waters will be tucked away somewhere, steadily decomposing under a tarp or in a paint store out of sight.

It is still business as usual whilst she is loaded.

The main issue of live export distills down to: more days = more deaths. And the days continue.

In fact, the exporter has now insisted they intend to resupply with fodder and continue to Israel via the 33-day voyage extension around Good Hope, the West coast of Africa and traverse the entire Mediterranean, presumably to unload in Haifa. The Australian government, who for the first time in history has deemed the animals not to be a biosecurity risk and had led us to believe they planned for them to be unloaded here is now having to assess an official application to allow the same animals to continue on from Fremantle and presumably head around Africa to Haifa.

Drone footage from today shows sheep in their pens, getting woollier, looking bored/lethargic/resigned, some with hollowing flanks, some appear to have the occasional cough. Cattle are standing in their pens in what appears to be moist, pugging sewerage.

It is business as usual, except these animals are not even at their destination yet and the ship was running out of fodder. More should be supplied in Fremantle today.

After my 57 voyages over a decade at sea I am totally in favour of unloading all the animals and having them processed in Australia. If they are to spend more time on the ship, any ship they will begin to exponentially fatigue and become more vulnerable to any diseases onboard and succumb to illness or death.

Cruiseships and airlines do not, because they are not ridiculous, outdated, draconian business models based on exploitation to the point of non-survivability.

This is standard live export terminology explaining that ‘we are seeing the amount of disease, suffering and deaths that we would routinely expect’. There will be pneumonia, scouring, pinkeye (blindness), lameness and metabolic conditions arising from time held in pens with no exercise and only shipboard pellets to live on that are notorious for causing gastrointestinal inflammation and associated illness. There will be hungry sheep who don’t like or want to eat anymore pellets. There will be shy sheep and cattle who are bullied away from troughs by others and don’t get their share. The current duration has now changed the game and exacerbated these conditions.

Any further extension would be diabolical for these animals. If the Australian government yields to an extension there will be an outcry. A recent RSPCA poll shows nearly 80% of Australians want the live sheep trade banned. The Australian government itself is in the process of ‘Phasing out’ the trade, however has not legislated a date yet. A date must be legislated soon to avoid any more unnecessary suffering such as is unfolding on the Bahijah.

The mere action of the exporter applying for a permit to continue this ridiculous voyage further proves that the industry as a whole has no consideration to the welfare of these animals and is operated by snollygosters who simply see the animals as economic units and another commodity to do with as they please.

If it continues I hope the government insists that an independent observer accompanies her to ensure the correct reporting of the true severity of the accumulative health and welfare issues and deaths experienced are recorded. A 17-day voyage may easily blow out to well over two months. The animals will suffer, the crew will be exhausted and the trade will have concreted itself as being notorious for deliberately and knowingly inflicting predictable and unnecessary harm and suffering to animals yet again.

The silver lining to live animal exports is that the global fleet is shrinking exponentially as more ships age out, get scrapped, burn, become decommissioned or simply loose trade and become inactive. Global tonnage has reduced incredibly in the past five years. The ships are dying.

This trade is all about dying.

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