Animal welfare trumps politics and profits

You don’t have to be a tree-hugging vegan to feel passionately about the mistreatment of animals, whether they’re cats, dogs, wildlife or livestock.

The live export trade may be big business, but it is one that shames Australia.

You don’t have to be a tree-hugging vegan to feel passionately about the mistreatment of animals, whether they’re cats, dogs, wildlife or livestock.

Animal welfare is an issue that transcends political ideology.

A wise man once said that “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”.

By that measure, we are far from great, despite most Australians being compassionate animal lovers who are appalled by any incident of cruelty, whether deliberate or the result of neglect.

Australians have been vocal in condemning Japan for its whaling and Taiji dolphin hunt, and China for its annual Yulin dog meat festival, but we are also guilty of turning a blind eye to horrendous abuse of our own animals.

There is the unchecked cruelty of “traditional hunting” allowed by the Native Title Act that sees protected and endangered sea turtles and dugongs slaughtered on our shores.

And for too long, we have turned a blind eye to the horrific reality of the live export trade.

Every year, millions of animals are packed on to ships, and thousands of them die from heat, dehydration, starvation or injuries.

Those that make it often face dreadful conditions and inhumane deaths.

When video footage of the animals’ suffering is intermittently thrust upon us, we spring into action, signing petitions and writing letters, but soon the news cycle moves on and the plight of millions of sheep and cattle is largely forgotten.

One can only hope that this time, it will be different.

Shocking footage of distressed and dying sheep on a ship bound for the Middle East, aired earlier this month, disgusted the nation, and the calls for action which rang loud and clear across the political divide show little sign of subsiding.

It’s not just in the Middle East that animals suffer terrible treatment. We have seen Australian cattle horribly mistreated in authorised and unauthorised Asian abattoirs.

The footage of what occurs in Indonesian slaughterhouses caused widespread outrage when it aired in 2011, but the same cruelty occurs elsewhere. Two years ago, the RSPCA called for the suspension of live animal exports to Vietnam when footage emerged of Australian cattle being beaten to death with sledgehammers.

You don’t have to be a vegetarian to believe that animals deserve to be killed in the quickest and most humane manner possible. The live export trade may be big business, but it is one that shames Australia.

Read full piece here.