TLTP
ISLAMABAD
Of all the millions of tonnes of cargo that’s piled up in the Suez Canal, none is more delicate than the animals crammed into the hulls of several of the ships, as at least 14 vessels stuck in and around the canal could be carrying 92,000 of livestock.
Bob Bishop, President of the Livestock Exporters Association of the USA, said a US shipment of dairy cattle left the Texas port of Galveston late last year en route to Pakistan via the Suez.
According to Bishop, another recent shipment of US cattle sailed from the West Coast to Pakistan, avoiding the Suez because of tolls, he said.
“After this container ship, you might see more and more of that,” he said. He said that mortality rates for livestock are generally no higher at sea than on land, with most ships having a veterinarian.
Cattle can also be transported by sea, and ships would generally have at least two or three days’ worth of extra hay or feed on board, said Bishop. “If the feed runs out, they could get more from a port while refuelling. A ship that can’t get to dock could get feed from a barge in what’s known as “midstream loading”, he said.
“If you’re getting low on feed, I would look at coming into port and putting on extra feed,” Bishop said. “If I was the owner of the sheep, I would try to find a country that needed sheep,” he said. “The shorter route would be back to Romania.”
While much of the waylaid cargo is commodity products such as oil that can be stored on ships for long periods, livestock need food and water, and such deliveries usually carry only enough for a few extra days. That could create a critical situation for ships to find supplies at a local port, or force them to turn around.
Dislodging the vessel blocking the canal may take at least a week, longer than initially feared, people familiar with the matter said. “I wouldn’t expect just after a two-day delay for a problem to have built up,” said Peter Stevenson, chief policy officer at animal-welfare group Compassion in World Farming, which has called for an end to the live-animal shipments.
“It’s as time goes by that the problems get worse. Occasionally, there are real scandals when things go wrong, but it’s a day-to-day horror.”
Seven livestock vessels that were due to arrive at Aqaba on March 21 are stranded near the Suez Canal, Capt George Dahdal, Representative of Jordan Navigation Syndicate, said.
Vessels that crowd thousands of sheep and longer journeys raise the risk of disease and stress, said Stevenson, of the animal welfare group. Some ships used to transport animals also have been converted from other purposes and aren’t ideally suited, he said. It can be difficult to reverse course after departure because of health rules.
