Animal advocates ask CFIA to immediately ban flights of live horse shipments to Japan | CBC News

Animal rights advocates who adopted 4 current shipments of live horses for slaughter from Canada to Japan are calling on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to cease the exports till exporters adjust to rules that say the animals cannot go greater than 28 hours with out meals, water and relaxation. 

The investigation by the group Animal Justice discovered most of the shipments detailed in a brand new report exceed the authorized 28-hour restrict. CBC News has not independently verified this.

“The footage from Japan is heartbreaking and shows that the situation is way worse than we ever expected,” mentioned Kaitlyn Mitchell, director of authorized advocacy at Animal Justice. 

“These horses are clearly exhausted and desperately thirsty. I was shocked that they are forced to wait up to six and a half more hours after landing before they can eat, drink and rest.”

For its report, Animal Justice collaborated with colleagues at Life Investigation Agency — a Tokyo-based animal welfare group — to monitor horses in 4 shipments from Edmonton to quarantine centres in Japan, which occurred in May and June.

The investigation discovered that whereas the precise flight time was underneath the 28-hour authorized time restrict, as soon as the transportation time from the Canadian farm to airport and from the Japanese airport to quarantine was included, all 4 exceeded the restrict.

The advocacy group additionally regarded again at authorities information overlaying 14 horse shipments since November 2023, departing from Winnipeg and Edmonton.

Based on official Canadian Food Inspection Agency period occasions to ship the horses to Japan, and estimates of how lengthy it could take the horses to attain quarantine from the airport, the group estimates at the least two-thirds of these shipments, together with all 4 of the flights from Winnipeg, exceeded the authorized time restrict. 

According to Statistics Canada, about 2,600 Canadian horses had been exported to Japan for slaughter in 2022, the place uncooked horsemeat is eaten uncooked as a delicacy.

Frightened, injured horses: advocacy group

The Tokyo group says it videotaped horses being unloaded from planes on the Kitakyushu and Kansai airports, and put into vehicles to be taken to quarantine amenities.

“All the horses that arrived in Japan seemed frightened and some were injured,” Ren Yabuki, co-founder and director of Life Investigation Agency, wrote in an e-mail to CBC News.

“Once arrived at the quarantine facility, horses were sprayed with disinfectant, and some of them were confused, frightened, trembling, and refused to get off the truck,” Yabuki wrote.

Facility workers holding steel bars shouted at horses to transfer them out of the vehicles, in accordance to Yabuki.

“Some of the horses looked dazed and looked like they might collapse at any moment.”

Nine teams, together with the Humane Society International/Canada, have requested the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to examine, impose a direct moratorium on shipments, and take enforcement motion in opposition to the exporters.

Read the letter to the CFIA beneath or right here: 

“The companies exporting these horses either know full well that they’re regularly violating the law, or they’re simply not bothering to monitor what happens to these horses once they land,” Animal Justice’s Mitchell mentioned.

“Either way, their failure to ensure the 28-hour legal limit is met is causing unfathomable suffering to these innocent animals.”

The CFIA mentioned it’s reviewing the knowledge offered by Animal Justice. Any followup might be in accordance with the company’s compliance and enforcement coverage, and will embrace schooling and non-compliance letters, administrative financial penalties and court docket prosecution, mentioned a assertion emailed from the company on Tuesday. If formal costs are laid, the CFIA will publish a bulletin on its web site.

The division mentioned underneath Canadian horse transport rules, the 28-hour interval allowed with out meals, water and relaxation begins when the horses not have entry to these issues — often the beginning of the loading course of.

For air shipments, the 28-hour interval begins with the beginning of the loading course of on the Canadian farm or feedlot the place the horses are held earlier than being trucked to the airport, CFIA mentioned. If horses are supplied with meals, water and relaxation throughout their transport, the 28-hour time restarts.

The 28-hour interval continues till the horses are supplied with meals, water and relaxation in Japan, or at one other appropriate stopover facility or airport. The CFIA mentioned it doesn’t conduct inspections in Japan, however considers the anticipated time required for off-loading from the plane and floor transport outlined within the transport plan offered by the exporter. Japanese authorities are answerable for the regulatory oversight of animals transported inside Japan.

Claims of terrified horses ‘gross manipulation’: exporter

Meanwhile, one of the exporters from Manitoba, Carolyn Lumax, mentioned by way of e-mail that each one of their transport vehicles are bedded with hay so horses have entry to meals for the five-hour transport between their farm and the time they’re loaded into crates on the Winnipeg airport.

“The CFIA is aware of this,” she wrote in a Wednesday e-mail.

Lumax added that horses sleep standing up, in order that they relaxation every time the vehicles or crates aren’t transferring.

“Our experience tells us they won’t drink for the first 35 hours,” Lumax wrote, including that is as a result of they’re creatures of behavior who do not like water that has chlorine or smells unusual to them.

She disputed claims the horses are terrified, describing these claims as unsubstantiated and a “gross manipulation.” The horses transported for slaughter are extra like cattle, mentioned Lumax — not saddle or present horses which are high-strung and bred to be energetic.

Mitchell says Canada is answerable for imposing rules that ought to be met within the case of live exports, irrespective of which nation the animals are despatched to. The export corporations are additionally answerable for compliance.

“Export companies’ duties do not end the moment the planes take off from Canada,” she mentioned.

“The CFIA is in regular contact with authorities in Japan, and part of those communications should include making sure that horses sent from Canada are at the quarantine facility where they can eat, drink and rest within 28 hours.

“When that doesn’t occur, the export corporations ought to be held to account.”

More than two years ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directed his agriculture minister to end the export of live horses for slaughter.

In May, the House of Commons voted to cross Bill C-355, which goals to ban the apply. Second studying will happen within the Senate within the fall.