Today our teams were busy all morning at Petline station, inspecting trucks with animals from various countries throughout the EU. On board were pregnant heifers, fattening calves, slaughterbulls.
We again find dirty water troughs, extremely thirsty cattle desperate for water, and dead animals. There is not enough space to unload all the animals so most of them are waiting on board the trucks for hours in the burning sun. In the pens it is not much better: the pens do not provide any shade and the temperature is 38.5 degrees Celcius and conditions humid. All animals are hot and thirsty. It is simply not possible to give each animal enough water even though some drivers are doing the best they can.
In the afternoon we had a meeting with theTurkish veterinarian at the border. He confirmed that the import taxes imposed on slaughter bulls will rise in July by 65 %. He told us that there are 10.000 bulls in Hungary waiting to be transported to Turkey right now and that the transport companies do not have enough trucks and drivers available to transport them. He says they are aware of the poor infrastructure at the border and lack of facilities to properly rest, water and feed animals waiting inside the border. Again, we are told that there are plans to eventually build a proper stable… but we have been hearing of these plans since 2011 and nothing concrete ever happens.
We made a quick round of all the livestock trucks waiting inside the border, in No Man’s Land, and counted 30. Some German livestock drivers said they had already been waiting for 9- 10 hours. Suddenly we were asked to go to the director of customs. He told us that we were no longer allowed inside the border.
We returned to Petline and inspected 4 trucks with pregnant heifers. Even in the late evening the temperature in the trucks is 32 degrees Celsius. One of the drivers told us that at the control post in Romania there was not enough water and food for all the animals passing. We inspected 21 trucks today.
