From the outside, the Spanish port of Cartagena may look like any other port. Trucks, containers and ships rushing back and forth. But behind the facade hides a cruel business. Besides Tarragona, Cartagena is the only port in Spain involved in the export of live animals.

Spain is the largest exporter of live cattle in Europe and the second largest…

Our investigation team is once again supporting the Polish Road Transport Police (ITD) during live transport inspections. This time, we are working through the night. In just eight hours, we inspect seven trucks (one of which is empty). Among them are three international live transporters carrying piglets for fattening from Denmark to Poland. All…

We have been invited for the sixth year in a row to hold a police seminar in Winsen (Germany) to  train police officers on animal welfare issues related to long-distance transports. The seminar consists of a theoretical part and a practical part involving animal transport inspections on the German highways A1, A7, and A39 in Lower Saxony.

The 17…

Our investigative teams are on the road once again, this time to inspect trucks carrying lambs to Italy for Easter. Since 2016, we have repeatedly observed the same violations committed by the same transport companies.

This time, we have requested the support of the Italian police five times and were able to assist in four inspections. We have…

Drei Jahre ist es her, dass der Jungbulle Ferdinand im Hafen von Cartagena, Spanien, schwer misshandelt wurde. Der Fall Ferdinand kam nur ans Licht, weil unsere Teams einschritten. Einer der wenigen Fälle, die bei Tierschutzverbrechen überhaupt vor Gericht verhandelt wurden.

At the invitation of the EU politician Thomas Waitz, our team makes its way to the EU Parliament in Brussels. There we will discuss the requirements for the new EU animal transport regulation at a round table with politicians from all parties and other animal welfare organisations. When we started with our investigations, we would never have dared…

The police stop a truck with 200 hungry calves near Besancon (France). This police action is possible due to our cooperation with the French NGO Welfarm and the EU politician Caroline Roose from the Green party.

The night before our investigation team observes the calves from the Czech Republic being unloaded at a supply station in the Alsace.…

Our team is driving to Wroclaw in Western Poland to support the Road Transport Inspection (ITD) with the inspection of live transports in this area. Surprisingly, this time we do not get to inspect any truck with animals on board. Moreover, we do not observe a single livestock truck (even an empty one) for two consecutive days.

It may seem…

It was an act of strength, a continuous commitment for the animals. When we started we could not foresee how long it would take. We started the first of our projects in Poland more than a decade ago: inspection of the horse market in Bodzentyn in the South of Warsaw in a poor region with around 20,000 animal husbandries. Almost every house had a…