{"id":2256,"date":"2017-11-11T22:19:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-11T12:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=2256"},"modified":"2017-11-23T22:33:07","modified_gmt":"2017-11-23T12:33:07","slug":"livestock-voyage-conditions-may-be-reviewed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=2256","title":{"rendered":"Livestock voyage conditions may be reviewed"},"content":{"rendered":"Changes to bedding and assessment protocols on live export voyages are being considered by the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, following a controversial journey and calls by Vets Against Live Export (VALE).\r\n\r\nThe department told <em>The Veterinarian<\/em> it is establishing a technical advisory committee to review the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock (ASEL).\r\n\r\nIn March of last year, the North Australian Cattle Company\u2019s (NACC) export vessel <em>MV Bison Express<\/em> travelled from Townsville to Vietnam and lost 1.42 per cent of its cattle, mostly due to lameness and injury.<!--more-->\r\n\r\nHeavy rainfall prior to loading, illness and rough seas were cited in the stockman\u2019s report.\r\n\r\nA total of 107 cattle (six per cent of the consignment) were deemed unfit for loading and remained in Australia.\r\n\r\nSue Foster from Vets Against Live Export (VALE) said the ASEL forbids loading if there has been 0.5 per cent of mortalities in the feedlot prior.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut [it] says nothing about having a high rate of significant illness that is likely to impact a voyage,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\nThe cattle were loaded with a tonne of sawdust which was used as bedding, along with other improvised items at hand such as uneaten food.\r\n\r\n\u201cSomehow bedding is not required for any cattle loaded from Brisbane or a port north of latitude 26\u00b0 south and exported to Southeast Asia or Japan,\u201d Foster said.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is evident is that the exporters recognize that bedding is important even when ASEL doesn&#8217;t as they did load one tonne of sawdust.\u201d\r\n\r\nFoster said the <em>MV Bison Express<\/em> voyage helped \u201cexpose more myths\u201d about the industry.\r\n\r\nShe added that despite the conditions, the fatalities on this journey pale in comparison to other well documented cases such as the recent <em>GL Kaihou<\/em> voyage from Darwin to Malaysia\/Brunei where the mortality rate was 7.79 per cent.\r\n\r\nFoster said that \u201clack of bedding will have compounded the issues\u201d that resulted in the deaths of so many cattle on the GL Kaihou.\r\n\r\nA spokesperson for the department said their investigation found loading of the Bison Express consignment was conducted in compliance with ASEL under the supervision of an accredited veterinarian and departmental veterinary officer.\r\n\r\nThe spokesperson also confirmed the non-compulsory loading of bedding by the NACC.\r\n\r\n\u201cFor this consignment, the exporter voluntarily loaded sawdust for bedding, and continued to load additional sawdust and chaff for heavy cattle, above ASEL requirements,\u201d the spokesperson said.\r\n\r\nThe spokesperson added that the department has instituted a new assessment protocol for consignments.\r\n\r\n\u201cConsignments where such a large number of animals are rejected are referred to a senior veterinary officer to consider whether the consignment should be stopped,\u201d they said.\r\nThe department\u2019s report on the voyage can be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/agriculture.gov.au\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">agriculture.gov.au<\/a>.\r\n<strong>SAM WORRAD<\/strong>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Changes to bedding and assessment protocols on live export voyages are being considered by the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, following a controversial journey and calls by Vets Against Live Export (VALE). The department told The Veterinarian it is establishing a technical advisory committee to review the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1036,1814,1816,154,1815,1817,895],"class_list":["post-2256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-asel","tag-gl-kaihou","tag-live-transport","tag-livestock","tag-mv-bison-express","tag-nacc","tag-vale"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":403,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":403,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"Changes to bedding and assessment protocols on live export voyages are being considered by the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, following a controversial journey and calls by Vets Against Live Export (VALE). The department told The Veterinarian it is establishing a technical advisory committee to review the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock (ASEL). In March of last..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express-150x150.png",150,150,true],"full":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express.png",2030,1354,false]},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"1036":{"name":"ASEL","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=asel"},"1814":{"name":"GL Kaihou","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=gl-kaihou"},"1816":{"name":"live transport","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=live-transport"},"154":{"name":"livestock","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=livestock"},"1815":{"name":"MV Bison Express","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=mv-bison-express"},"1817":{"name":"NACC","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=nacc"},"895":{"name":"VALE","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=vale"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express-150x150.png",150,150,true],"cvmm-medium":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express.png",300,200,false],"cvmm-medium-plus":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express.png",305,203,false],"cvmm-portrait":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express.png",400,267,false],"cvmm-medium-square":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express.png",600,400,false],"cvmm-large":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express.png",1024,683,false],"cvmm-small":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express.png",130,87,false],"full":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Worrad-vale-MV-Bison-Express.png",2030,1354,false]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2258,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions\/2258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}