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29 December, 2006

ANIMAL ACTIVISTS SLAM ROBERTS AND THE “CORMO EXPRESS” IN DEVONPORT

Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania (AACT) advocates are going to hand out information on the live export trade, and the Roberts group’s involvement in it, outside Roberts Real Estate, at Stuart Street in Devonport on Wednesday (December 29) from 1. 00 p.m.. This follows an announcement by Roberts that it will ship 45,000 sheep to Kuwait next month on the re-birthed “Cormo Express”, now known as the “Merino Express”.

Live Export Campaign Co-ordinator Suzanne Cass said:

“We are horrified to learn that Roberts is sending 45,000 more sheep to Kuwait – and that they are using practically the worst ship of them all, the re-birthed “Cormo Express”. The ship was renamed after the 2003 tragedy when its sad cargo was rejected by Saudi Arabia, then every other country in the Middle East. It was stranded at sea for 12 weeks with a horrific death toll”. We believe that the public should be aware of the facts of this shipment, and we’ll be providing information outside Roberts from 1.00p.m. on Wednesday.

AACT claims that the “Merino Express” is even worse for the animals, because it is a closed deck ship and the animals are held below decks in the hull, where the heat is particularly intense. The animals are wholly reliant on efficient ventilation on ships such as this one and the “Cormo Express” has a history of poor ventilation. This is how the animals contract pneumonia, heat exhaustion and blindness. The “Cormo Express” boasts amongst the highest mortality rates of all the currently used livestock carriers.

“Roberts’ Chris Taylor claims that evidence of brutality of this trade is “historic”, that animals’ welfare will be protected and the disasters that regularly occurred – especially with the “Cormo Express” - are at an end”, Ms Cass continued. “I would like Roberts to show us real proof of what improvements have been made to the “Merino Express”, since it was the “Cormo Express” since the huge mortality events of the 1990’s, in 2002 and in 2003.

“Can Mr Taylor assure us that the animals will be handled and slaughtered in a humane manner as they would have been in Australia? That what we saw on “Sixty Minutes” in 2003 doesn’t happen any more? Of course he can’t.
“There is ONE veterinarian in the Middle East dealing with these issues, and he is based in Bahrain and apparently is not terribly concerned about the horrific treatment animals face in importing countries.

“Roberts, and everyone else who is part of this atrocity, know all about this too, and clearly have no concerns either”, Ms Cass concluded.

For further information, please contact AACT
Footage on CD available on request