ILPH Makes A Noise to end Europe
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Around 100,000 horses travel into and across Europe every year - forced to endure unnecessary journeys that can take up to four days, only to be slaughtered when they reach their destination. Ultimately, the ILPH would like to see slaughter at source and long distance transport to slaughter replaced with a carcase only trade, meaning just the meat is transported to areas of demand.
Around 100,000 horses travel into and across Europe every year - forced to endure unnecessary journeys that can take up to four days, only to be slaughtered when they reach their destination.
Ultimately, the ILPH would like to see slaughter at source and long distance transport to slaughter replaced with a carcase only trade, meaning just the meat is transported to areas of demand.
The Make A Noise website - www.makeanoise.co.uk, which goes live this week, provides information on the campaign, including: hard facts about the trade; what the ILPH is striving to achieve; and case studies of horses that the team witnessed during their field trip in August. Most importantly it provides supporters with ways to get involved in the campaign, from taking direct action to fundraising.
Jo White, Director of Campaigns and Communications comments: "Now is the right time for people to get involved in our campaign. We have reached a critical stage which brings us closer than ever before to seeing an end to this trade. We have been overwhelmed by offers of support but need more people to sign up to our campaign to demonstrate the sheer number of people that will not tolerate this suffering."
Long distance transport to slaughter is Europes biggest single abuse of horses. Overstocking of lorries, failure to stop for rest, food and water and loading animals that are not fit for travel are common contraventions of EU laws that see many thousands of horses suffer for no good reason.
By signing up to Make A Noise anyone who is concerned about the welfare of animals can have a positive impact on this unnecessary trade and help the ILPH to achieve its aims:
1. Achieving rigorous enforcement of EU Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 by all EU Member States and thereby improving the conditions for slaughter horses
2. Seeing journey limits put back onto the political agenda so horses are slaughtered at source and do not have to endure these journeys
3. Ultimately, achieving an end to long distance transport of horses to slaughter in Europe, replacing it with a carcase only trade
FACTS
1. Around 100,000 horses currently travel long distances to slaughter in Europe; this number has reduced from 165,000 in 2001.
2. A long distance journey is defined as a journey that exceeds eight hours. However, in reality the majority of these journeys take a minimum of two or three days, if not longer.
3. Italy is the largest importer of horses for slaughter for human consumption, with 84% travelling there. Source countries include: Poland, Romania, Spain (the three biggest exporters) as well as Lithuania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Latvia, the Ukraine and other countries.
4. Current EU law states that all horses travelling long distances to slaughter must be separated during the journey by individual partitions. In August 2007, eight months after the implementation of the law, the ILPH recorded lorries moving horses in groups of seven or eight; thats a minimum of 28 horses in a lorry that should only carry 16 to 18. Other European welfare organisations have also reported similar breaches of the Regulation since January 2007.
5. About 40% of lorries carrying horses to slaughter do not stop at Control Posts where the horses are supposed to be unloaded, rested for 24 hours and given food and water after 24 hours of travelling.
6. Typically, these horses, which are generally not used to being transported at all under any conditions, suffer from extreme exhaustion, thirst and serious injuries.
7. Temperatures on the lorry can legally reach 35°C, but these regularly exceed 40°C and can plummet many degrees below zero.
8. Legally, horses should be provided with food and water after eight hours of travelling. However, the ILPH and other welfare organisations have concrete evidence that this very rarely takes place.
9. The present trade is inhumane and unnecessary. It only continues because lack of enforcement of the EU Regulation ensures its profitability.
10. The ILPH was founded on the issue of conditions slaughter horses have to suffer and is committed to ending the trade in long distance transport of horses to slaughter in the European Union.
ILPH - Official Charity for the 2007 Olympia International Horse Show
Added on: 22/11/07.
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