Meeting with Dutch Ministry: Importance of access during transport

Today Eyes on Animals and a livestock chauffeur with 33 years experience met with the authorities from the Dutch Ministry of Economics and the nVWA (Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority) to again stress the importance of livestock trucks being built to allow access to the animals during transport. After releasing our report in December 2012 on the legal and practical reasons for why trucks must be designed this way, today the purpose of the meeting was to find out how the Dutch authorities will tackle this problem. More and more trucks in the Netherlands, both closed ones (with air-conditioning or forced ventilation) and normal ones, are being built without access doors, meaning the chauffeur has extreme difficulty accessing animals in need during transport. With closed ones, there is the additional problem of chauffeurs and inspectors not being able to check on each animal easily.
We held a very positive meeting with everyone sharing the same view and concerns. The Dutch authorities are now going to attend to this problem and instructions for approving vehicles for animal transport will be made more stringent regarding access. A focus will also be put on the need for better visual inspection of animals during transport, so that the chauffeur and inspectors can quickly check on the animals inside, and if necessary provide first-aid that become unfit during the journey.
Eyes on Animals together with the Animal Welfare Foundation in Germany are planning on meeting soon with the German and Danish authorities on this same issue, as these two countries are also faced with more and more of these types of trucks that do not provide adequate access. KAALE in the UK are keeping the British authorities informed about this topic, as many of these closed trucks without access doors are seen regularly on the boat between the UK and the European continent.