BAHIJAH: Because they care....

The ABC reports that only some of the animals on board the controversy-plagued live export ship MV Bahijah will be offloaded in Western Australia. The rest will apparently be sent back  to the Middle East, under a plan put forward by the export company.

In a statement, the Department said the exporter had this morning provided "supporting information" to its application to unload some animals in Australia before re-exporting the remaining animals to the Middle East.

And next we will be reminded that the animal export industry has animal welfare as its highest priority. If  these sheep and cattle are turned back around to the ME, then days to destination  will exceed any previous voyage other than the disastrous Cormo Express voyage. Lets not forget that these animals are exposed to 24h lighting, ship movement, constant noise (>80dB) in addition to sea movement, limited ability to move around and lie down with cumulative stresses increasing every day they are kept on the ship. Jo Moore, for example in her PhD thesis, found that the longer the voyage, the greater the  Bovine Respiratory Disease....and that was on voyages that were less than half of the current proposal. As for how the sheep with much longer wool length (likely now >ASEL) will deal with crossing the Equator a second time?

If the export industry does care about animal welfare and if they dont want to have the cattle trade killed off with the sheep trade, then now would be the time to unload these animals. Animal welfare experts are dismayed, Veterinarians dismayed. Dont expect the public to think this is OK...its not.


See: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-31/mv-bahijah-live-sheep-export-vessel/103406578