Stop Tasmanian Animal Cruelty, together with Animals Tasmania, will be rallying against the cruel live export trade in Hobart tomorrow.
The ‘Mourning Walk’ will begin at Franklin Square at 12.30 p.m., with a short walk down to Parliament Lawns, and activities beginning there at 1.00p.m.
The Walk is part of a global protest against a trade that is characterised by horrific journeys of up to 6 weeks on old third world ships, culminatng in brutal slaughter in countries thousands of miles from the animals’ homes. Similar events are being held in Adelaide and Brisbane, as well as in Israel, while rolling protests are also taking place in the UK, Israel, Ireland, the USA and South Africa.
Speakers at the Hobart event are Independent Member for Denison, Andrew Wilkie, Tasmanian Greens MP Andrea Dawkins, former live export veterinarian and ship’s captain Dr Peter Kerkenezov and Stop Tasmanian Animal Cruelty’s Suzanne Cass.
‘The Muslim Festival of Sacrifice is due to begin in just a few days time, and shipload after shipload has left Australia in an unusually cold winter, to arrive in the Middle East to temperatures reported to be close to 60 degrees Celsius’, said Suzanne Cass. ‘The government knows how terribly high risk these journeys are, and how hideously cruel the treatment of these animals is in countries that have absolutely no regard for animal welfare. Nor is the government carrying out its statutory duty of investigating heinous breaches of the regulations; currently it is sitting on no less than 30 investigations, and no shipboard mortality reports are being done either. Worse, it is letting the exporters investigate themselves’.
Animal advocates are now targetting the veterinary profession through the AVA, which tacitly supports the trade, and the Australian Cattle Veterinarians’ Assocation which openly supports it, since the trade would be shut down overnight without the complicity of veterinarians who profit from it.
Ms Cass said that animals continue to be held and sold from illegal street markets in horrific heatwave conditions, and will be slaughtered all over the Middle East in filthy street bloodbaths, and the Australian government has never acted to prevent this.
‘There has never been a singe penalty of any substance or meaning applied to any exporter, no matter how serious the breaches of ESCAS regulatory framework have been, nor how many times or how flagrantly the exporter has violated those rules’, said Ms Cass.
STAC and Animals Tasmania have suggested that those attending may want to wear black, and bring a flower as a tribute to the millions of animals who have suffered and died in this trade.
