09. July 2020

Spain | Live transports by sea | Day 4: Port of Cartagena

Out teams have been investigating animal welfare violations during loading in the Spanish port of Cartagena for four days in total.

On our last investigation day we observe bulls from the United kindom being loaded into FREEDOM in Cartagena

On our last investigation day, we observe further loadings of live animals in the Spanish port of Cartagena. Already in the past three days, our teams have documented several animal welfare violations when animals were loaded from trucks onto livestock carriers.

As in the previous days, the daily temperature rises above 30 degrees Celsius. Today we document the arrival of animals that originally came from Spain, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. However, they were transported directly from the Spanish fattening farms to the port for the export to third countries. Today, we see up to ten trucks waiting to unload animals for their next journey by sea. Only a few animal transporters have ventilation and drinking systems. Most trucks are approved for national transportation. Ventilation and watering systems are not mandatory during national transports.

Next, we observe how the NABOLSI I is being loaded with sheep and the vessel FREEDOM with cattle. The vessel ELBEIK also docks in the port of Cartagena today. However, no animals are being loaded onto the ELBEIK today.

At the end of our four-day-investigation, we must sadly conclude that after two years since our last investigation in Cartagena and several complaints to the Spanish authorities, nothing has changed. We demonstrated yet again how the animals suffer even before starting their journey by sea. The shortcomings identified by the EU Commission in 2018 during the loading of animals still prevails. The animals are still being mistreated by the workers. Also, the responsible port veterinarians fail to fulfil their task of guaranteeing that the animals are fit for transport. We will report the outcomes of our research to the competent authorities.