Last week the Wacpaw/EonA team visited the Buipe livestock market in Ghana’s Savannah Region, one of the country’s largest. Every Monday, 800 to 1000 cattle are brought in from across Ghana and neighboring countries like Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, with over 60 trucks leaving the market for various destinations. The transport methods—three-wheel mini trucks, Kia trucks, and long trucks—are packed with animals unable to move and there’s no regulation in place to stop this.
We witnessed a disturbing lack of compassion from the handlers, who routinely kicked and dragged the animals; many also twisted the tails of the animals during loading, resulting in them breaking. This is excruciatingly painful as bones from the spine continue into their tails. The market offers no food or water for the animals, leaving many weakened and suffering. There are only two broken loading ramps, forcing the handlers to load the cattle manually, causing the cattle further pain and extreme fear. Even worse, no veterinarians were present to treat the animals in distress or put ones seriously injured out of their misery.
The market is harsh, and the environment does not support the animals’ welfare. In the face of this, we took immediate action, buying food for the animals in the worst condition, trying to ease their suffering. We believe the solution lies in training handlers in humane practices, installing proper feeding and water stations, providing on-site veterinarians, building functional loading ramps, and enforcing regulations to prevent overloading and mistreatment.
We are grateful to the market’s leadership and stakeholders for their cooperation during our visit and will remain in touch to get welfare improvements here.
