Export ship blocked over animal video

AN EXPORT ship due to carry over 50,000 sheep to the Middle East has been blocked from leaving Australia after secret footage emerged of distressed animals dying and struggling to breathe in filthy conditions.

Australia’s live animal export trade, worth more than A$800 million (US$615 million) annually, has been under scrutiny in recent years after footage shot at offshore abattoirs showed cattle being mistreated.

The latest images, shot onboard Panama-flagged livestock carrier showed large numbers of sheep packed together in small, stifling pens, covered in or surrounded by excrement. Many were dead.

The footage, captured over five voyages last year to Qatar, Kuwait and Oman from Australian ports, was released by activist group Animals Australia.

“They just died in front of us,” Faisal Ullah, a graduate from Pakistan’s Marine Academy who shot the videos, told broadcaster Channel Nine which first aired the vision on Sunday.

“Just one by one. One after another ... I mean, you are just putting live animals into the oven.”

Channel Nine said the sheep were stacked 10 storeys high in the ship and forced to stay standing for three weeks, often in “blast-furnace” Northern Hemisphere summer conditions.

Ullah said lambs born to pregnant sheep, which are not supposed to be exported, died on the vessel and were thrown overboard.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said on Monday that thousands of sheep died.