Animal transports to Turkey: Not eligible for approval from an animal welfare perspective
Cattle in a truck at the border crossing between Bulgaria and Turkey.
The article ‘Why animal transports to Turkey are not eligible for approval’, published in the legal journal ‘Tier- und Artenschutz in Recht und Praxis (TiRuP)’, provides a well-founded legal analysis and a clear verdict: animal transports to Turkey are not compatible with current animal welfare law – and are therefore not eligible for approval.
The article was written by the Animal Transport Working Group of the Veterinary Association for Animal Welfare (TVT). The article is based, among other things, on our comprehensive research and inspections at the Turkish border, which we carried out together with ‘Animals' Angels’ (AA) between 2011 and 2021.
During this period, we documented a total of 833 animal transports and analysed in detail the sometimes catastrophic conditions for the animals. A particularly shocking example is the case of the 69 German heifers in October 2024, whose suffering we made public.
Overwhelming evidence: animal suffering at the EU's external border
The results of our documentation speak for themselves: half of the animal transports had to wait more than six hours at the border.
Of these:
- 37 percent waited between 6 and 12 hours,
- 35 percent between 12 and 24 hours,
- 23 percent between one and three days,
- and 5 percent even more than three days.
- The longest stays lasted up to 8 days.
These extreme waiting times on the transport vehicles – sometimes in high outside temperatures and with inadequate supplies – cause massive animal suffering and constitute a clear violation of applicable EU animal welfare transport law.
Legal assessment: No approval possible
The authors of the article carefully evaluated the available data and classified it legally. Their conclusion is clear: the structural and systemic abuses make animal transports to Turkey legally non-permissible.
The publication in TiRuP, an interdisciplinary project of the Johannes Kepler University Linz (IUR), the University of Vienna and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), underlines the scientific and legal relevance of the findings. TiRuP stands for freely accessible, factually sound and practice-oriented specialist articles on animal and species protection law. The article was also published in the publication ‘Amtstierärztlicher Dienst und Lebensmittelkontrolle’ (Official Veterinary Service and Food Control) of the Federal Association of Official Veterinarians.
Download the entire article here (available in German only).