CAIRO: Animal rights are not top priority in Egypt and the Middle East, but after more than 200 cattle died on a ship bound for Egypt, the issue is being revisited in earnest. Advocates are again calling for a ban on live exports from Australia to the North African nation after the cattle perished en route. The shipment included some 16,000 animals and had sailed from Australia to Egypt last month. RSPCA Australia chief Heather Neil said something must have gone tragically wrong on board the ship. Yet, most observers of the industry admit that around 10 percent of the animals die in transport from the farm to the slaughterhouse. International shipping is no different. “This one shipment has claimed the lives of more than a quarter of the number of cattle that died at sea throughout the whole of last year,” Ms Neil said. Cattle are often cramped into a small area, literally neck to neck, stepping in their own feces and waste as they travel from one location to another. In 2006, rights group PETA was able to halt the transport of live cattle from Australia to Egypt after a campaign in Cairo at the Australian Embassy brought the issue to the media's attention. Live transport resumed in 2008 with allegedly more stringent protocols in place to handle the transport and slaughter of the animals. All live exports to Egypt are now directed to one Australian-approved feedlot and abattoir. In 2006, Jason Baker, director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for Asia Pacific, donned a sheep suit while presenting flowers in commemoration of Australia’s temporary ban on live animal exports to the Middle East. “We were there to encourage and praise the government for the temporary ban,†Baker said at the time. Approximately four million sheep alone are sent to the Middle East. According to Baker, tens of thousands of those die in transport each year. “They die of dehydration, starvation and even some simply stop eating,†says Baker. Egypt imports livestock from various countries including Australia in order to slaughter them at home according to the Islamic practice of halal, in which the animal must be slaughtered with a razor-sharp knife without being stunned. The issue of live transport has been at the top of many advocates priorities in the past few years, with a number of leading international figures calling for the end of the practice. Neil argued that trade should never have been reopened. “Egypt has proven it will take Australian chilled and frozen meat over live animals, so we should be working on growing our processing capacity, not increasing live exports,” she told reporters. An Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry spokeswoman said the high mortality rate had triggered an investigation, and the results would be made public. “Livestock exports from Australia must meet the requirements of the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock,” the department said in a statement. “The Australian government is committed to world's best practice in the live export trade and will take any necessary action once the investigation is completed.” The hard part might be convincing the Egyptian government and its people that the conditions of animals is a bad thing. At a local Egyptian cafe, when photos of the poor treatment of animals were posed to a number of workers, they laughed, saying these are animals. “What should we do, allow them to have the nice things that we humans have? They are for our food, so it doesn't matter to me what happens as long as they are killed halal,” one worker said, highlighting the difficulty facing advocates in Egypt and the region. BM
