South African animal rights group seeking court order to block sheep exports

South Africa’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is pursuing a court order to ban a Kuwaiti firm from exporting sheep.

Kuwaiti livestock exporter Al Mawashi is facing backlash from South Africa’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) for how its sheep are treated when being shipped to other countries.

Today, the organization asked Grahamstown High Court in the Eastern Cape for an interim court interdict to prevent a ship. That belongs to Al Mawashi — from sailing out of South Africa’s East London port with around 70,000 sheep. 

The NSPCA wants the shipments to be eradicated due to the animals. Those animals are suffering from various health conditions as well as animal welfare violations. It is also pressing the government to introduce new regulations on how live animals should be transported.

The exporter has shipped roughly 120,000 sheep. And they shipped them from South Africa to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in two shipments since October 2019.

It is challenging the case. It is claiming that its land-based and shipboard operations met animal health and welfare standards of the World Organisation for Animal Health. And some additional concerns by the NSPCA considered.

According to court papers seen by Reuters, the NSPCA claims it has been investigating Al Mawashi and its parent company Livestock Transport and Trading Company since late last year. 

The animal welfare charity says the sheep kept in cramped spaces. They kept in extreme heat in temperatures as high as 60°C. Which leads to some of them “cooked alive”.

“Those (sheep) that survive death. They suffer a great deal over the two to three-week ordeal,” said the NSPCA in its court submission.

“The plight that these sheep have to endure — anywhere between 40,000 to 80,000 per shipment at a time — is horrific.”