Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ABHORRENT & CRUEL
Charities hit out over calves’ 30-hour journeys from Ulster without food
THOUSANDS of calves face “cruel” journeys of up to 30 hours without food, charities have claimed.
Last year, 5,863 cows under 60 days old were exported from Northern Ireland. EU law dictates they must be fed 19 hours into their journey. Inspector Nicola Glen, from the Eyes On Animals UK & Ireland group, said: “The trade is both abhorrent and cruel.”
THOUSANDS of unweaned calves from Northern Ireland are cruelly going without food for up to 30 hours as they are sent abroad to be slaughtered, animal welfare charities claim.
They revealed some are just weeks old when they are packed into lorries and shipped on long journeys from Antrim and Armagh to Spain, via Wexford’s Rosslare Port.
Eyes On Animals, Ethical Farming Ireland and Compassion In World Farming were able to follow the 63-hour journey of 47 calves from a Co Antrim control post to Spain in just one “abhorrent trade”.
Paperwork shows they left Northern Ireland at 6am on September 21, 2019, and arrived at Qualivia control post, Cherbourg, at 11am on September 22 – 29 hours later.
In a letter to the animal welfare groups, former Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Edwin Poots said the calves would only have had access to water for all that time.
The charities said they were fed in France and rested for 12 hours before making their way to their final destination at Vilarta, Spain, arriving at 6pm on September 23. GB calves, however, get 24 hours rest.
Eyes On Animals UK and Ireland inspector Nicola Glen told the Mirror: “The calves went without feed for a minimum of 29 hours, this is 10 hours over the maximum limit laid down in [EU] regulations 1/2005.
“Northern Irish calves are going up to 30 hours without any feed when the regulations state after eight hours, if its necessary, they should be fed – which we believe is the case.
“After 19 hours the calves should be unloaded and fed and they need to be fed individually because they are so tiny and don’t understand what’s going on.
“By the time Northern Ireland calves are on the ferry they are breaching the rules, because the ferry itself can be 18 hours.”
Caroline Rowley from Ethical Farming Ireland said: “There are about 300 calves on each truck and some of them are only 15 days old.
“They travel all the way to Rosslare. They can’t be fed on the truck because they are on a liquid diet and even the
water systems, a lot of the calves won’t know what to do with them.
“Because there’s so many calves, there are ones that aren’t near water teats so dehydration is a problem.
“They have to be there [Rosslare] a minimum of two hours before the ferry leaves but we have seen them there four or five hours before it leaves.
“Then the ferry journey can be 18 or 19 hours. By the time they disembark and get to the control post and are unloaded that’s another couple of hours.
“Some are going over 30 hours with no feed.”
Nicola added: “In the natural environment a calf would feed from its mum every four hours. Water systems fitted in
About 300 calves on each truck ..some only 15 days old CAROLINE ROWLEY YESTERDAY
the trucks are basically redundant to a calf, they don’t know how to use them and they are positioned incorrectly. Calves need to be fed individually and you will get a more dominant animal that would go to the nipple and take all of the food.
“These vulnerable animals, of only a few weeks old, will be suffering from lack of feed and rest. The trade is both abhorrent and cruel and needs to stop.”
EU regulations dictate that “unweaned calves which are still on a milk diet must, after nine hours of travel, be given a rest period of at least one hour sufficient in particular for them to be given liquid and if necessary fed”.
The rules then state:
“After this rest period, they may be transported for a further nine hours.”
DAERA said the European Commission has not informed it that rules are being broken.
However, Eyes On Animals said it has received written confirmation from DG Sante, which is responsible for the EU Commission’s policies on health and food safety, the export of unweaned calves from both Northern Ireland and the Republic is in breach of EU regulations 1/2005. Before Mr Poots temporarily stepped down, the three charities sent four letters “advising him of the unlawful trade”.
In a response, dated July 21, 2020, he stated he believes “these journeys are permissible”. Mr Poots added the unweaned calves have access to water and “analysis by my officials has shown calves exported from Northern Ireland via a Republic of Ireland port [Dublin or Rosslare] are rested on the truck in the
Republic for at least one hour before sailing to France. It has not been considered necessary to date to feed the calves during this rest period to achieve compliance with the EU regulation and EU officials are aware of current journey practices.”
His party colleague, MP Sammy Wilson, also wrote to former minister Poots on behalf of the charities.
In his response Mr Poots again said he was “satisfied the approval of journey logs by my department complies with the requirements of Council Regulation EC 1/2005”.
The Mirror has reported how one calf, believed to be from Northern Ireland, lay dying in Spain following its gruelling export and animal rights groups had to offer to pay for a vet.
Secret footage reported by the
Guardian last April appeared to show weeks-old calves from Ireland being beaten and kicked at a French feeding station following export from Rosslare.
Once in Spain, the calves are fattened and some face being re-exported to countries such as Lebanon, where undercover filming by Animals International showed “animals are hacked at repeatedly until they die” at one facility.
A spokesperson for DAERA, now led by minister Gordon Lyons, said: “Official records from 2020 show that 5,863 calves under 60 days old were exported from NI to GB, ROI and Spain. To date, DAERA has not been made aware by the European Commission of any issues in how DAERA approves the journey logs for the transport of unweaned calves.”