It is not raining anymore and it is getting really hot. A serious problem at Petline is that, like inside the border, there is only one water hose. Because the empty trucks on their way back to Europe are using water to clean their trucks the water pressure for filling up the water tanks on the trucks loaded with live animals is very low which makes the process of giving all the animals water impossible.
Some trucks enter Petline and go to park behind the pens. There are not enough stables for unloading animals and at least 10 trucks will spend the night there with the live animals waiting on board. Animals have to sleep on the trucks, some of them are overcrowded and the animals don’t have enough space to lie down. In those truck where space is available sometimes the bedding is so wet and dirty or even scarce that is not comfortable anymore for the animals to rest.
Slaughter bulls from Hungary are waiting inside two trucks where the bedding is insufficient and completely wet and dirty. The bulls are so thirsty and hungry that they eat or try to drink from the dirty bedding. The water system is turned on so we press the metal nipple drinkers, which are designed for pigs, to help the bulls get some water. The young bulls are desperate and fight to get to the nipples and lick them and drink as much as they can. No food is offered to them while we are there. The drivers tell us there is no need because the bulls will arrive at the slaughterhouse near Istanbul at 8:00 in the morning.
More trucks arrive with pregnant heifers and fattening bulls on board. We observe a driver that is unloading newborn calves, he is making a small pen for them next to the truck. The transport company is from Germany and has pregnant heifers on board. Three calves were born on board the truck while waiting inside No mans land (inside the border) . Pregnant females over 90% of their gestation are not allowed to be translated. These German heifers should have never left the farm in Germany.
We observe a truck with very young female cattle from Germany too, they look just weaned. The drivers are giving them food and they seem very hungry and eat the hay quickly. A truck from the company PIMK, loaded with calves from Slovakia, has two dead animals on board. One of them is already smelling very badly and completely bloated. The truck was dirty, stinking of ammonia and the animals are overcrowded. This is typical of Pimk, we have seen horrible conditions on Pimk trucks many times and still they continue this way.
The Petline station is filling up with livestock trucks. Livestock trucks are queuing up to get water for the animals, others are just parked outside waiting for custom papers. We meet with the drivers of two trucks that are waiting for papers. They have pregnant heifers from the Czech Republic on board and the conditions are not good: the bedding is dirty and not sufficient. Some of the heifers are licking the walls of the truck.
At night we count 41 trucks, each one loaded with cattle, hanging around the border and Petline waiting for papers. We were able to inspect 27 of them. According to the Turkish chief veterinarian there were 85 livestock trucks from Europe that passed the border today.
It is impossible for the border veterinarians to handle all these trucks. Transport companies should know this in advance and plan the journey according to this. It is also impossible that these animals were rested in control posts along the way- there are not enough and do not have the capacity to rest so many at once. The Member State veterinarians continue to send animal trucks in violation of the legal requirements, and do not check that the journey is well planned ahead of time.
