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Docked in Townsville, North Queensland , the vessel now said to be the largest vessel of its kind in the world with 29,000 square metres of livestock space , owned by Middle East investors with a long history in supplying livestock from Australia and other ports to the Middle East and international markets .
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The Panamanian flagged livestock carrier MV NADA, which last month carried the single largest number of stock from New Zealand to Mexico -53,000 head- is shown yesterday in Townsville . Strangely, the arrival of the large vessel has gone unnoticed by the local media despite the fact that there has been a lively local debate for and against export of live cattle, added to by the likelihood of a looming large market in China .
Our New Zealand contacts report that the arrival of the carrier off that country last month was "shrouded in mystery " with livestock brokers and shipping agents refusing to discuss the shipment. It docked to load 50,000 sheep and 3000 cattle for breeding purposes .The shipment was not confirmed until the Ministry of Primary Industries was asked for details .
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Aerial view of stock carrier in New Zealand.
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New Zealand has not exported livestock for slaughter since 2007. Livestock can only be exported for breeding. The New Zealand Meat and Related Trade Workers' Union Canterbury branch said it was disappointing that the sheep, which represented a week's kill at one meatworks , were going out of the country-exporting jobs.
In other NZ media reports, which included several photographs, it was stated that voyage to Mexico had taken 16 days , during which the cattle pens had been cleaned out every three days , while the sheep were left standing in their feces throughout. The comment was made that under these circumstances Mexico would be aware of the ship before it reached port, presumably referring to the smell .
A report said in Mexico the animals were loaded onto trucks and/or trains and transported for an additional 10-15 hours. The temperature at Mazatlan, the port where the cattle and pregnant sheep were unloaded, approximately 90°F (32° C), reaching up to 120°F (49° C).
Animal rights activists in New Zealand and Australia expressed grave concerns about the welfare of the animals, who can suffer from malnutrition, starvation, heatstroke, respiratory disease, blindness from seawater spray and stress from 16 days of intensive confinement. Unloading 50,000 pregnant sheep and 3,000 cattle was expected to take several more days.
The company exporting the animals, Livestock and Agricultural Products New Zealand,said the animals were treated humanely, there being a Mexican veterinarian and three experienced stockmen onboard . The government said that the animals shipped to Mexico would be used for breeding. Activists, however, said animals were reported to have been killed upon arrival during the last live export shipment to Mexico in 2007, when the government gave the same assurance.
NADA is said to have been a former container ship built in l974, converted in China into the second largest livestock carrier in the world , capable of carrying 20,000 cattle and 110,000 sheep. In June 2012, nine Pakistani crewmen walked off the ship in Fremantle and sought political asylum.
