A busy day! The team on the Bulgarian side of the border documents nine transports today. The morning starts with young heifers being transported from Romania. According to the drivers, the animals rested in the nearby control post, and indeed they look okay, but their number is worrying: over 80 on each truck! We are relieved to see that the following four transports carry animals in a rather good condition, although exhausted by the long journey (900km from the last rest). Unfortunately, the conditions on the last two trucks inspected today are disastrous: sheep from Romania, overcrowded, exhausted and with clear signs of heat stress – the same situation as the day before. Moreover, the bedding stinks with ammonia so much that we are having difficulties breathing when filming the animals. Again, it is hard to believe that they had rested in the nearby control post. The temperature during the inspection is over 40 degrees, both ambient and in the trucks. No wonder that some animals lie down and appear to be in a very bad condition. We learn from our team on the Turkish side of the border that the sheep transports we documented yesterday spent over 24 hours within the border, without any shadow and with only one water source for the trucks. In such heat!
