Live export trade must end now
Adistinct smell of manure is emanating from one of New Zealand’s ports right now. There, at some point during the next few days, the country’s backward welfare laws will be on full display when thousands of animals embark on their big OE, otherwise known as overseas exploitation.
The animals are scheduled to leave from Timaru in a practice of government-approved cruelty we’ve been promised would be wound down, but that is actually ramping up. Because while the nation’s been focusing on who can’t get into the country, we’re turning a collective blind eye to just what’s leaving it.
Last week, the livestock ship Al Kuwait returned to New Zealand, where it is once again allowed to fill up yet another cargo of horror: 6748 cattle bound for China. It was last here about five weeks ago to load more than 10,000 cows from the South Canterbury port.
Like those before them, these most recent animals loaded into the ship will spend weeks suffering at sea, crammed into pens and destined for a country that lacks minimum welfare standards. Once they arrive, they will apparently be used for ‘‘breeding purposes’’, not slaughter. Definitely not slaughter. Of course, that’s if they get there at all. The practice of shipping animals overseas isn’t just inhumane, it’s extremely risky.
The 2020 sinking of livestock export ship Gulf Livestock 1 saw 41 people and 6000 cows die in the waters off Japan, the latest in a line of needless tragedies.
In 2003 the government banned the live export of sheep for slaughter after 57,000 of the animals on board the Cormo Express were turned away from Saudi Arabia.
After two months at sea, 6000 of them died.
The ban was eventually extended to include cattle, but all it did was create a loophole that’s been well-used ever since: the animals can still be transported for breeding. See what it did there?
But back to shipping these definitely not-for-slaughter animals around the world.
Last year the Government said the practice would be wound down over the next few years and come to an end by
2023.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor acknowledged the benefit some farmers get from the trade, but also noted
‘‘support of it is not universal within the sector’’.
Needing to ‘‘stay ahead of the curve in a world where animal welfare is under increasing scrutiny’’ played a key part in the decision, O’Connor said.
The announcement was, of course, met with fury by those who profit from suffering – in 2019, the trade was worth
$77 million – and also criticised by welfare groups who said the ban should be brought forward. Two years left a lot more time for a lot more agony, after all.
Still, it’s that promise of winding down that’s left an odour at the port of Timaru, where those opposed to the practice say it’s cranking through the exports like never before.