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Tourist Port City in Spain Secretly Exports Millions of Sheep and Cattle to Middle East

In the Spanish town of Cartagena, millions of sheep and cattle and shipped to the Middle East in a cruel and unnecessary trade. Cartagena is a port city that’s home to 213,000 residents and a popular destination spot for those wanting to see the rich history of Spain. However, what many tourists won’t see is the hidden mass exports of live animals.

Source: Caroline Roose/Youtube

Spain is now the largest exporter of cattle by sea in Europe and the second largest exporter of sheep, The Guardian reported. Over three million farm animals have been shipped out of Cartagena’s port in the last five years bringing in a total trade worth £500m to Spain in 2020. Cartagena and another port city called Tarragona are the only facilities in Spain that have permits to cosign live animals by sea.

Trucks bring animals from farms all over Spain to these ports to areas that are closed off to the public, where they can load them onto ships in secret. Animal activists have used superzoom lenses to look for violations of EU laws, including wounds, bad conditions inside the trucks, and cruelty to animals when they are loaded, The Guardian reported.

“Most people wouldn’t even understand why we are putting a goat, a sheep, a pig or cattle on a long transport. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s the unnecessary cruelty, which will sooner or later be the end of this industry,” Gabriel Paun, director of Animals International told The Guardian.

How did Spain become a leader in live animal exports? Well, Australia set new rules in 2011 for animal welfare, including requirements for details on the condition that animals will be slaughtered in once they arrive at their destination. Since these new rules, Australia has stopped trading with Saudi Arabia and Libya.

“Usually within a market, if someone pulls out … someone else comes in to fill the void, and Spain was willing to do that,” Olga Kikou, European Affairs Manager at Compassion in World Farming, told The Guardian.

Although vet checks of the animals are required before they board, this goes widely unregulated. There are so many ways that the truth can be hidden. Animal rights activists continue to lobby for a ban of live animal trade in the EU. Although some politicians agree, a ban in Spain is quite unlikely.

Source: NowThis News/Youtube

The cruelty that animals suffer in factory farms begins immediately after they are born and does not end until they are no longer living. There’s no respite in their unnaturally short yet painful lives. One of these horribly cruel practices is the transport of live animals to their slaughter.

Every year, billions of animals are loaded onto unsanitary, overcrowded vessels for trips that can last anywhere from a few days to a few months. These animals are often denied adequate clean food or water as well as protection from extreme temperatures or weather. As a result, fatalities are common, and there have been cases of trucks overturning, ships sinking, diseases breaking out, and animals dying of heat stress.

The animals on vessels are treated as commodities. The inhumane treatment and packed conditions on these ships are not ok. All of these animals have traumatizing last moments alive, and the way that we use and exploit animals needs to end.

Sign this petition calling on the European Union to ban live animal exports!