More than 40 animal welfare organizations have written a letter to Arsenio Dominguez, the Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), asking for urgent action to make livestock ships safer.
These are ships that transport live animals like cows and sheep across the sea, often for long distances.
The organisations say that these ships are very old and dangerous. Most of them are over 40 years old and were not built to carry animals.
They are old ships that were later converted to transport animals, which makes them unstable and unsafe. Many of them have problems with ventilation, waste management and structure.
This puts animals and crew members at serious risk.
In the last 20 years, there have been many disasters involving livestock ships. In 2020, the ship Gulf Livestock 1 sank, killing 41 crew members and almost 6,000 cows. Over 14,000 sheep drowned when the Queen Hind sank in 2019.
The recent case of the Spiridon II in Turkey also showed again that the system is failing. Almost 3000 cows, half of them pregnant, suffered at sea for 63 days.
The groups are also worried about the crew members working on these ships. Many are forced to work in unsafe and dirty conditions. Sometimes they are abandoned without pay.
International rules
The letter calls for international rules to make livestock ships safer. At the moment, there is no global law that deals with the transport of live animals by sea.
Other dangerous cargo, such as chemicals and gases, is already regulated by international rules, but not live animals. The organisations say this must change.
Countries like New Zealand and the United Kingdom have already banned, or are planning to ban, live exports by sea. Australia plans to stop exporting live sheep by 2028. But without action from the IMO, these unsafe ships will continue to operate worldwide.
The animal welfare organisations say the IMO must act now. They are asking the organisation to make a strong set of international rules to protect animals, the crew, and the ocean before more disasters happen.ed in a tragedy in Türkiye, once again showing the serious problems in this industry.
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