Secret Animal Transports - When the Law Fails to Protect

Millions of animals are transported across Europe every year, as far as North Africa and the Middle East. Sheep and cattle are often crammed into trucks and ships for days or even weeks. Since 1991, filmmaker Manfred Karremann has been documenting the fate of animals on long-distance transports. Despite improvements in legislation, not much has changed over that time.

Manfred Karremann has already made an impact with his documentaries about the transport of animals across Europe. On several occasions the EU has responded to his reports by improving animal welfare regulations. But this still offers too little protection to the animals. An everyday occurrence: the brown and white cow in the truck is breathing heavily. It's down on the floor, where other animals can't avoid stepping on it. After 20 minutes the animal is dead. That is a scene shot at the end of August 2017 on the EU's external border with Turkey. An exception? Exports of cattle and sheep from the EU are on the rise again. Along with Turkey, most of the live animals are headed for the Middle East. Even young calves are transported over distances as great as 3,000 kilometers at a stretch. Arriving at their destination after days or weeks, the animals from Europe face an end with terrible suffering. Animal welfare activists are sounding the alarm again: They say that the laws are no longer obeyed once the animals leave the EU. They report dehydrated cattle at the Turkish border and unspeakable torment on old cattle freighters and after arrival in the Middle East and North Africa. More than one million signatures protesting this state of affairs were recently submitted to the EU Commission in Brussels. The background: The European Court of Justice decided that animal welfare rules apply up to the animals' final destination. The problem: nobody monitors the transports once they have left the EU, as filmmaker Manfred Karremann proves. Just outside the EU's borders, he encounters dehydrated cattle, and cows giving birth and dying on trucks. Karremann wanted to know: Are these images of animal suffering just exceptions? Or is the law being systematically broken? Karremann's months-long investigation takes him from German farms through Bulgaria and Turkey to Lebanon.