Since 2011 the border between the EU and Turkey has been open for livestock trucks from the EU to enter Turkey. Many of these animals arrive from far and have to wait for hours, even days, at this border crossing. We have seen hundreds of animals fall very sick at this border crossing due to these lengthy delays or poor conditions on board (overcrowding, heavily pregnant, extremely hot, dehydrated). Heidi was one of these animals.
Often they were just left to die, or in some cases, the importer comes to order that their throats be cut on the truck to put an end to their misery. However, this method of “putting them out of their misery” was cruel, especially because the animals had already gone through so much suffering. For this reason, Eyes on Animals has brought a captive bolt stunner to a private veterinarian living a few kilometres from this border. Truck drivers with injured animals on board can now call him to have their animals humanely rendered unconscious before bled out. We have let the animal trucking companies know of this, as well as teams from other NGOs that often inspect animal trucks at this border, and hope that no animal has to suffer as much as Heidi again. This is not really “good news”, as these long-distance transports to Turkey are always full of animal suffering and we think they should be stopped, but at least access now to a captive bolt stunner can provide some relief to the injured/sick animals.
