The National Council of SPCAs says despite the livestock carrier, Al Kuwait leaving Cape Town Harbour, the dire conditions of the cattle on board will continue.

The council confirmed that the ship left the Mother City on Wednesday morning, after being docked on Sunday.

At the time around 19,000 were on board.

The National Council of SPCAs says it humanely euthanised eight cows, while others were found dead.

The arrival of the livestock carrier resulted in the stench hanging over the CBD on Monday.

The livestock carrier travelled from Brazil and is destined for Iraq, but stopped in the Mother City to load food and hay for the animals onboard.

Earlier this week, Several NGOs and the council rejected the live export of animals by sea.

The council’s Jacques Peacock says the scenes on the vessel were not looking good at all.

“ The general conditions on the ship were just absolutely gruesome, with a build-up of faeces and urine, and animals having no option but to rest in dams of their own excrement. It is absolutely horrific. The stench that was experienced in Cape Town is about a fraction of what it was like on the vessel itself”.

Meanwhile, an environmentalist group has expressed shock and horror at seeing the suffering the thousands of cattle were in on the Al Kuwait.

The Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute Board’s Dr Braam Hanekom is calling on government to take immediate action to stop this unethical treatment of farmed animals.

“This raises the question we have been asking for so long about the specific farming methods that we see around us and also the related value chain of how things are conducted. We ask for an in-depth investigation by the Department of Agriculture and Commerce. We ask that the government takes immediate action in line with the current legislation”.

 

Picture supplied by: Cape of Good Hope SPCA