On the night, 24th August, 2016 our team inspected six sheep trucks at the port of Calais (FR). The trucks travelled from the UK and arrived by the Joline Ro-Ro Barge, which is owned by the Dutch company, Onderwater Agneaux. The sheep on board the trucks looked crowded. According to the documents they were given only 10cm2 more space than the maximum EU densities allowed for normal weather circumstances, despite a heat wave warning with temperatures expected to reach beyond 30 degrees! We decided to trail one of the sheep trucks, from the company Diepeveen. In some areas of the trucks, sheep were on top of each other and sheep that were lying down were being stepped on. On the last part of the journey, outside temperatures were over 30 degrees Celsius.
Due to the fact that there was only one driver, the long-distance journey took much longer than needed, because the truck had to remain stationary for the ‘single drivers’’ own rest breaks. If there had been two drivers this could have been prevented. The final destination was a halal slaughterhouse in Germany.
Our observations will be reported to the official authorities in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
