One of
the major items on Australia's export bill happens to be livestock
exports. Australian livestock breeders ship every year hundreds of
thousands of sheep, goats and cattle to many countries around the
world for meat or in other words for slaughtering. The total
Australian livestock exports are worth US$ 1 Billion and employees
thousands of people in Australia. Because of the volumes, much of the
live stock handling has been mechanised. Livestock are brought up to
ships in narrow width barges and are then transported on big ships
almost on a conveyor belt for sailing to other countries.
An
Australian exporting company called 'Wellard' had sent one such ship
carrying about 21000 Australian sheep to Bahrain, a small but
affluent island country in middle east. The port authorities of
Bahrain rejected this consignment of sheep from Australia for disease
concerns and refused to unload the livestock on land. 'Wellard' then
offered this consignment to Pakistan. It is not known, what were the
terms and conditions of the offer and whether Pakistanis were told
about the rejection of the consignment by Bahrain. Whatever
transpired between 'Wellard', Pakistan agricultural department and
Australian agricultural department, who had issued the export license
in the first place, Pakistan issued an import license to 'Wellard'
and the ship was diverted to port of Karachi in Pakistan.
After
the sheep reached the Karachi port, the livestock cargo was unloaded
on land. Before sending the sheep to abattoirs, Pakistan authorities
decided to check the livestock health. The sheep tested positive for
salmonella and Actinomyces bacteria and were considered as unsafe for
human consumption. Alarmed by the prospects of a huge loss on the
consignment, exporters sent the samples from the sheep to a British
laboratory and came back with clean reports claiming that the meat
for human consumption. Municipal officials in Karachi however
rejected the tests by the British laboratory. Pakistan livestock
officials then ordered that the entire lot of 21000 sheep be culled
over disease concerns.
Sheep
exporter 'Wellard' says that the sheep were kept at a farm, some 50
Kilometers south-west of Karachi port in Bin Qaisim town, in a
fenced compound under control of the company guards. Pakistani police
with semi-automatic weapons forced their employees away from the
compound where the sheep were being held.
Pakistani
authorities carried out the culling of the entire lot of sheep in a
very brutal fashion by beating, stabbing and then throwing the sheep
into ditches to be buried alive. Graphic footage of the slaughter was
aired by ABC’s Four Corners program in Australia on Monday, 5th
November 2012, which showed images of a man sawing at a sheep’s
neck before throwing it into a bloody trench and other sheep being
bulldozed into the pit after having been killed in October. There
were media reports that some of the sheep seen in the footage were
still breathing.
ABC's
footage has raised a huge controversy in Australia with everyone
indulging in angry condemnation of the treatment to Australian sheep.
Australia’s National Farmers Federation says that “decisive
action” has been taken to temporarily suspend exports of sheep to
Pakistan and Bahrain while investigations were carried out.
Australia's Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig calls the slaughter
“appalling” and his department disputed that the sheep were
unhealthy. He said “We do not know the reasoning behind the
Pakistan authority’s decision to cull the sheep in Pakistan or
their choice of the method used.” Australian exporters are rather
worried about this ban because a lot of 3000 breeder cows from
Victoria were on their way to Pakistan and there were no guarantees
they might not meet a similar fate.
Many
feel that export of livestock should be banned to Pakistan and middle
east but farming lobby group does not agree. They have come out with
a kind of funny statement on the issue, which says that Australia
was a world leader in animal treatment in exports and banning the
trade would see welfare standards fall. They say “If Australia was
to stop exporting livestock, global animal welfare standards would
unquestionably decline.” Even Australian Prime Minister Julia
Gillard has now demanded that Pakistan investigate and explain the
brutal killing of 21,000 Australian sheep in Karachi.
Many
Australians feel that livestock trade should be banned and only
frozen meat should be allowed to be exported. Farmers Unions do not
agree with this. There is a thinking that Australian sheep have a
right to die with dignity and even if they are sent abroad for
slaughter it should be done the way Australians think as dignified.
It
seems that Australians want to tell the world. “Its O.K. to kill!
We would provide animals for your slaughterhouses. But you must kill
the animals, the way we tell you, because Australian animals must die
with dignity.”
8th
November 2012
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