Australian animals caught in brutal live-export trade.
Animals Asia is appalled to learn of the suffering and inhumane death of many millions of animals exported from Australia to the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The suffering of hundreds of thousands of cattle shipped to Indonesia to be fattened and slaughtered has been exposed following an intensive investigation by Animals Australia. Animals Australia also exposed the suffering of millions of sheep shipped to the Middle East. Click
here for more information.
See here for more information from the Animals Australia and RSPCA Australia websites.
The images in the slide show below are courtesy of Animals Australia, taken in a slaughterhouse in Indonesia.
Please note they are graphic and distressing.
Every year, millions of Australian animals are exported live for slaughter. Cattle, sheep and goats are sent all through the Middle East and Southeast Asia — to countries where animal-welfare laws do not protect them. Tens of thousands of animals don't survive the sea journey and those that do, disembark in countries where they are transported, handled and then slaughtered in appalling ways. Most animals slaughtered overseas have their throats cut while they are fully conscious, leading to an incredibly painful and prolonged death.
Over the past seven years, Animals Australia has conducted investigations in the Middle East into the treatment of exported Australian animals. The evidence from these investigations across seven different countries has consistently revealed the willingness of Australia's live-export industry, and consecutive federal governments, to export live animals to the Middle East regardless of how cruelly they will be treated. Only last November, Animals Australia investigators once again documented horrendous abuse of Australian sheep in Kuwait. The footage, which aired on ABC1's “7.30 Report”, outraged Australians, yet once again the federal government maintained its support of this cruel trade.
Indonesia has been the main destination for Australian cattle, with 4.6 million exported to this country over the past decade. Animal-protection groups had hoped that the treatment of cattle in Indonesia would be better than that of sheep in the Middle East because of the greater level of Australian industry involvement. However, evidence gathered in Indonesia reveals that the involvement of Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) and LiveCorp in Indonesia has actually contributed to and facilitated brutal treatment of Australian cattle.
The evidence gathered against Australia's live trade during the recent Indonesian investigation and in the Middle East in the eight years prior is damning. No amount of profit, no amount of excuses, can justify Australia's continued involvement in live-animal export and the associated cruelty inflicted on animals.
When Australia's live trade was exposed as supplying cattle to Egypt in the full knowledge that it was routine practice for cattle to have their leg tendons slashed to disable them prior to slaughter — the Federal Government should have ended the trade then and there. This further evidence of Australian interests knowingly supplying animals to even worse abuse in Indonesia demands that the federal government acts now.
Despite industry claims, live export is not the only option. Australia has a strong chilled and frozen meat trade, which could be expanded to meet the international market demands for meat.
Please write a polite letter to Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Joe Ludwig and Prime Minister Julia Gillard calling for an end to the live-export trade and for this trade to be replaced by a carcass trade, where the animals are stunned prior to slaughter within Australia.
