Investigation Day 1 – 30. June 2021 

Today, our team arrives in the Bulgarian village Kapitan Andreevo. The village is located on the EU's external border with Turkey. During our investigation the temperatures are supposed to rise above 30°C. According to the EU regulation 1/2005 it is forbidden to transport animals in extreme weather. Our teams…

Our team is in Bulgaria in the village of Kapitan Andreevo which marks the external border of the EU with Turkey. This is the tenth year in a row that our teams have been on the lookout for animal transports in extreme temperatures. During this investigation we inspect 28 animal transporters in total. The vehicles that leave the exit point of…

Again, in the morning the team on the Bulgarian side of the border have their hands full. We see a very overcrowded sheep transport and a distressed heifer rolling her tongue – a possible sign of thirst and heat stress. We start filming and document this reflex repeated continuously for over two minutes! One mystery truck passes by us quickly, but…

A quick morning look at the situation at the border keeps us busy without time to eat or drink for almost five hours! We inspect 14 trucks trying to make their way to the border – the second lane is blocked by parked trucks, as usual. Animal transporters wait for more than one hour to enter the border area. Two drivers call the police to help…

Sunday. We know that the nearby control post in Svilengrad is full of trucks, so we expect today or tomorrow morning to be very busy. Today, we only see cattle transported, and the temperature remains very high: already before 10am it is 33 degrees. Later during the day, we document temperature inside trucks exceeding 37 degrees, and yet not every…

A busy day! The team on the Bulgarian side of the border documents nine transports today. The morning starts with young heifers being transported from Romania. According to the drivers, the animals rested in the nearby control post, and indeed they look okay, but their number is worrying: over 80 on each truck! We are relieved to see that the…

Today we document three sheep transports crossing the border in the early afternoon. The heat is severe and the unshorn sheep from Romania suffer immensely on board of trucks. We see at least one leg trapped between the floor and the wall of the trailer. The sheep are breathing heavily, look exhausted, while overcrowding with insufficient headspace…

The team on the Bulgarian side watch the border from late morning. We see only one truck crossing during the day, others choose the night, with lower temperatures but longer waiting times to cross. Five of six trucks loaded with cattle look overcrowded, which means even greater suffering for the animals. Moreover, water troughs are dirty and full…

TSB|AWF and EonA teams are documenting the situation on the Bulgarian/Turkish border Kapitan Andreevo/Kapikule. In the night, the team on the Bulgarian side inspects nine long-distance transports of pregnant heifers waiting in a very long line-up to cross the border. The access to the border on both lanes is completely blocked by trucks. Therefore,…