News

Aug 09, 2023

Exclusive look into Australia's live export industry aboard Al Messilah

There are nearly 60,000 sheep on board the Al Messilah when it departs Fremantle

There are nearly 60,000 sheep on board the Al Messilah when it departs Fremantle port.

Not all will make the journey to Kuwait, about 12,500 kilometres across the Indian Ocean.

There's long been controversy and speculation as to what happens inside live export ships as they carry tens of thousands of Australian sheep from Western Australia to the Middle East.

For the first time, the ABC has been given unrestricted access for the two-week journey from Fremantle to Kuwait City.

The journey begins at Fremantle Port, where a converted car carrier is loaded over several days with sheep raised on farms across WA, primarily the Great Southern and Wheatbelt regions.

The ship, one of four operated by the company between Fremantle and the Gulf states, has 10 decks each divided into pens holding about 50 animals.

For the duration of the journey the sheep will eat, sleep and defecate in the pens on a bed of sawdust.

A crew of mostly Bangladeshi men keep tabs on the animals under the eye of stockwoman Tiffany Devi.

Teams look out for sick or injured animals, drafting off those not fit to travel.

"My role involves basically walking the decks and checking the livestock. I'm looking for anything that's sick or injured, anything that just might not be enjoying the feedlot life," Ms Devi said.

"And I'm also involved in overseeing the warehouse with the care of the livestock. They do a lot of the feed and the water."

On this voyage the Wheatbelt stocky is accompanied by Australian-accredited veterinarian Herbert Reben, a former federal agricultural vet who is responsible for the health of the cargo.

Three times a day the vet does the rounds of the decks, treating sick animals brought to the hospital pens, injecting antibiotics if they have an infection, and drenching.

"Reducing the stocking density on the ship, of course, has probably been a big help in regards to animal welfare and making it just easier for sheep to move around freely to get the feed and water without having to struggle, and then having plenty of time to rest comfortably as been big benefits," Dr Reben said.

He said the reality is that it's in the company's interest to keep as many animals alive as possible.

"I don't mean to sound too crude on this, but dead sheep don't pay any bills, dead stock don't pay any bills," he said.

"There's no incentive for any of these exporters to squeeze any extra out of the voyage, because if it's going to result in excess mortalities there's no payment for that.

"The bottom line is good animal welfare is actually good business."

Dr Reben said on this journey the crews had kept the animals in great shape, keeping water and food troughs full.

Along with the pitch and roll of the ship, down in the windowless lower decks it's noisy.

There are the ship's engines, as well as 30 giant fan towers that suck air from the top of the ship to pump across the animals at a constant 18 kilometres per hour.

Sensors monitor the conditions and send alerts should temperatures rise.

While the fans keep the animals cool, infection can spread quickly if not checked.

Many of the decks have no natural light because there are no windows; a car carrier didn't need them. Two of the decks are below sea level.

The target mortality rate is fewer than 0.25 per cent.

Out of 59,000 sheep on this shipment, 44 died en route.

Many of those deaths, Dr Reben said, were due to pre-existing sickness.

"For every one of those that didn't survive, [we] conducted a post-mortem to find the cause of death," he said.

One of the main welfare concerns about the live sheep trade is the amount of room available and whether the sheep can lie down in their pens during the long journey.

A time lapse shows that despite the strange environment most animals found a space to settle and were able to move around to find feed and water.

While some of the pens with the robust older wethers were more tightly filled, the younger animals were more spread out.

Life on board is tough for the animals and the crew.

The base wage for the Bangladeshi stockmen is US$110 a month.

It's a slow trip, painstaking at times, but the crew is allowed to cut loose once every trip to mark the ship's crossing of the equator.

On this trip, the crew held an open barbecue and everybody joined in.

A few days later the ship enters the Arabian Gulf, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

The Al Messilah's crew prepared to offload 43,000 of its livestock in Kuwait before discharging the remainder in the UAE and Oman.

It's the end of a long journey for both crew and cargo.

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