Today we trained the highway police from the region around Szeged, in Hungary. In the morning we covered the theoretical part, where the police learned about the EU legislation protecting animals during transport. Two official veterinarians also attended the training day and gave a presentation. One of the veterinarians was the chief veterinarian of the county and the other gives mandatory courses to the truck drivers. The manager of the nearby control post also listened in to our training and reacted very positively to it. After we set up an inspection point right at the Hungarian border to Romania to check on any livestock trucks passing by. A truck from Hunland, transporting Hungarian piglets for further fattening in Romania was stopped.The loading density and bedding was good, however there was not enough headspace for the piglets loaded on the 3rd and 4th floor. The police filled out an official complaint about this, for the official veterinarian of the region of export to follow-up on. As the total length of the journey was 10hrs and it was not hot out, the drivers were allowed to continue their journey with the piglets but hopefully Hunland will refrain from repeating this loading error in the future- only much smaller piglets should have been loaded on these floors with limited vertical space or the 3rd and 4th floor should have been left as just one floor with more headspace.
After the road inspections we went to Vet Express control post with the police to check on the cattle being housed there for 24hrs before continuing on their long journey to Turkey for slaughter. The Bovinex trucks had extra fresh straw now inside, which was good. Many of the bulls were lying down and ruminating. The police now have a good contact with the owner of this resting station and with the veterinarians, we hope that in the future this will lead to more inspections and better enforcement of the legislation protecting the animals on this route.
