Live export vet’s first-hand account: ‘Animals are not designed to live in a hot metal box’
News
Former live export vet, Dr Lynn Simpson, previously worked on 57 live export voyages and describes the heartbreaking plight of animals trapped on these “hot metal boxes” of cruelty.
Header image: A worker loads cows onto a live export ship. Credit: Taranaki Animal Save
Live export is an inherently cruel trade that allows for farm animals to be sent on long, gruelling journeys to countries with inadequate animal welfare standards for financial gain.
With the experience of serving as the on-board vet on 57 live export voyages, Dr Simpson is using her knowledge and expertise of live export to shine a light on the cruel realities of this barbaric trade.
In the following Q&A, Dr Simpson describes to us what happens after these gentle farm animals who are used to grazing in beautiful, green paddocks are prodded onto a truck, unloaded into a feedlot and crammed into a live export ship, reiterating the need to protect the ban.
Animals are crammed in hot metal boxes of cruelty
Q: Can you please give us your first-hand account on the conditions the animals are kept in and the cruelty that they face?
A: Live export ships are like a hot, humid, noisy multi story carpark that floats on the ocean and moves with the waves.
They provide an unnatural inhospitable environment to the animals inside that they would escape from if they could. Diseases are easily transmitted via forced ventilation systems and health and welfare risks from mechanical failures are ever present and potentially catastrophic.
No medicine to help animals escape heat stress
Q: Can you tell us about the heat exhaustion animals face on a live export ship?
A: I have never done a voyage where there was not an element of heat stress, regardless of the month or season of the year. I have had to monitor animals routinely breathe in a distressed manner for days on end during voyages.
Heat stress is a nasty way to die and is something that cannot be stopped using veterinary medicine. As animals crowd into the decks, their body heat, hot humid breath, hair/wool length, body condition, as well as environmental factors, all contribute to the heating of the animal housing areas.
Live export relies on the lack of transparency
Q: What are your thoughts on the transparency of the live export industry?
A: I could see that this trade was reliant on lack of transparency to continue as it was. I sent many reports with images and videos to exporters and regulatory bodies but they frustratingly went unaddressed.
The Australian Government eventually published online, an in-depth report I presented of my concerns and this action gave me greater freedom of speech on all matters regarding the trade as I was no longer legally bound to many confidentiality restraints.
Claims made by the industry
Q: Industry representatives often claim that animals are better off on ships than farms. What are your thoughts on this?
A: Animals are not designed to live or thrive in a hot metal box that moves constantly on the ocean and is at greater risk than any respectable farm of causing animals harm.
Any breakdowns can result in delays and therefore extension of voyage length, increasing the risk of disease, suffering and injury or starvation due to insufficient provisions for extended voyage lengths.
Animals selected for voyages have gone through many assessments on health before loading and their mortality rate is not comparable to farming statistics. This claim is an industry nonsense.
Speaking up against the live export trade
Q: What moved you to speak out about the cruelty behind the live export trade?
A: I began complaining about conditions I was seeing such as overcrowding, heat stress, poor monitorability, injuries and disease spread during my voyages from 2001 on. These conditions were clearly not acceptable for the animals as individuals and not in the best interests of animal health or welfare.
The outcomes these animals experienced with stress and disease were also not in the best interest of human food safety in importing countries.
We have more intelligent, respectable, less shameful, evolved and decent alternative ways to provide the world with genetics and protein.
Bleak commercial future for live exports
Q: Aside from being an example of poor Veterinary ethics, poor animal welfare and the shipping sector associated with the most controversy and disasters, what other factors are limitations to the live export trade?
A: There is growing global condemnation of the trade from developed countries and sensible associated product replacements with milk and meat exports, and as such the live trade has a very bleak commercial future. This is reiterated by the shrinking of the global livestock carrier fleet and the exorbitant insurance costs they attract.
To invest in new ships now would take around four or more years to see a new ship on the water at an absolute minimum. To predict the state of this trade in another four or five years, wanting a 30 year lifespan for a ship, would be a massive financial gamble on a dying trade. What live sea trade will exist in 2060? None I hope.
No animal should ever have to go through such cruelty. Dr Simpson’s insights further reiterate the absolute need to protect the ban on live exports.
New Zealand’s humane decision to ban cruel live exports has helped prompt several countries such as Australia and the UK to review this barbaric trade and take necessary measures to phase it out, fully or partially.
Restarting the trade would not only cause hundreds of thousands of New Zealand animals to suffer, but also risk our reputation as a leader in animal welfare on the global stage.
Together, we can #ProtectTheBan on cruel live exports by sea.
Live export
On 30th April 2023, Aotearoa New Zealand became the first country in the world to ban live export by sea.