4th December, 2019 Misc. 14,000 sheep.

Apologies again for ‘break in transmission’ further problems with laptop.

The photo above is of a Croatian sheep.

Just over a week ago I had an email from Animals Australia, a worthy charity that I have occasionally donated to, with the awful news that a Romanian ship transporting 14000 live animals to the Middle East had capsized in relatively shallow water at the harbour mouth. The photo showed the ship lying on its side half submerged. It was clear that the majority of the sheep would have drowned or been crushed to death as they would have been thrown all to one side of the hold. A few it seems had been plucked from the ship alive and were being ‘cared for’.

The enormity of this event beggars belief in the 21st century. The issue of live export of farm animals is a contentious one, a number of animal welfare charities around the world, such as Compassion in World Farming in Britain and Europe, are campaigning for a complete ban on the export of live animals. This shipment of live animals was from an E.U. country!!, the sale of these animals is to a part of the world where they are killed without being stunned first and with little or no regard for animal welfare.

There is much talk of ‘trade’ with a looming election and Brexit, as if, in a 19th century Free Trade mind-set, any trade takes on the garb of a virtue. Searching questions about the ‘trade’ need to be far more to the fore.

As if to rub salt in the wounds I found no other reference to this disaster in the media, although admittedly I have never regularly taken a daily newspaper. Other priorities existed, as if anything was more newsworthy than events at this Romanian port.

Animal rights, economic rights, religious rites, international rights, human rights, what is the rank order of moral lore? And whose news is it anyway?