According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) more than 50 billion animals were slaughtered for human consumption in 2005. Aquatic animals and animals from countries that did not report their slaughter figures are not included in these statistics. This figure is incredible and represents the sum of many individual animal tragedies.
What is the situation?
In the United States alone, approximately 10.1 billion animals were slaughtered in 2005. Every “slaughter” animal is subjected to the stress of transportation at least once in its life, when transported to the slaughterhouse. Very often, in addition to the transport to slaughter, the animals have already endured one or more transports in their young lives. Canadian sows are sent to Mexico for breeding and Mexican cattle are sent to the United States. American horses are sent to slaughter in Mexico and Canada. A distinction is made between “breeding”, “further fattening” and “slaughter” animals. As a rule, the more “valuable” “breeding” animals are transported more carefully. The animals involved in this live export trade include cattle and calves, horses, donkeys, sheep and lambs, pigs and piglets, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, fish, marine animals, laboratory animals, zoo and circus animals, dogs, ostriches and exotic animals. Various means of transportation are used in this trade: trucks, trains, ships and planes.
Why are live animals transported and not refrigerated meat?
a) Specialization of the industrial agriculture
Industrial agriculture works according to the same principles as normal businesses. The individual work steps are separated from each other and shifted to where the production conditions allow the highest profit margin. Industrial animal breeding and animal husbandry, for example, are concentrated in those regions where feed and wages are cheap or animal protection standards are low.
b) Centralization of slaughtering facilities
Large-scale slaughterhouses owned by a few big companies were constructed. In order to fully use their capacity, they try to attract customers by offering cheap prices. Smaller, regional slaughterhouses cannot compete and shut down, which results in longer animal journey times.
How long do the journeys take?
The shortest transport is the one to the nearest slaughterhouse. In the best case, the farmer himself transports the animal to the slaughterhouse within one or two hours. However, in most cases, the animals are bought by dealers at livestock markets and transported to distant slaughterhouses. The Animals’ Angels inspectors have documented some examples of long-distance animal transports and journey times involved:
Pigs from Canada to Hawaii. Duration: 5 days. Pigs from Iowa, USA to Mexico Duration: 3 days. Horses from Ohio to Texas. Duration: 24 hours. These are average travel times. Unforeseen delays caused by accidents, traffic jams on highways or at the borders are not included.
Are the animals cared for during these journeys?
Unfortunately, there are no laws that make food and water for the animals on the truck mandatory. For this reason, only very conscientious drivers actually unload, feed and water the animals. To date, only very few Canadian and US long-distance transports vehicles are equipped with a water supply system.
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