A Helping Hand

I worked on a Live Stock Carrier in about 77 the Al Khaleej (Probable the worst ship I was ever on.) It belonged to Kuwait Livestock Transport and Trading and used to carry if memory serves me correctly about 28,000 sheep at a time. We would normally load in either Oz. or N.Z. when loading in N.Z. the transportation of sheep seemed to be more controlled by law than in Oz. This included the compulsory carrying of vets to monitor the health of the sheep on loading, transportation and discharge. I think the main reason for carrying live sheep as opposed to frozen meat was both for financial and religious reasons. One of the holiest festivals in the Islamic religion is Eid al-Adha The festival remembers when Ibrahim's (Abraham's) Sacrifice when Allah (God) appeared to him in a dream and asked him to sacrifice his son Isma'il (Samuel) as an act of obedience to Allah. As Ibrahim was about to kill his son Allah stopped him and gave him a live lamb to sacrifice instead. The story demonstrates Ibraham's dedication to surrendering to Allah and ******s celebrate Eid as a reminder of their own commitment to Allah with a ritual sacrifice of a live sheep/lamb. I was told at the time that a live sheep on the quay in Oz was worth about $10 and that a live sheep on the quay in Kuwait was worth about $100 frozen lamb was only worth about 50% of that. The prices like any other commodity changed with supply and demand but normally peaked with the various religious festivals. The ship made 3 runs up to Kuwait where the sheep were discharged into trucks that transported them across the desert to Iraq which was at war with Iran. At the time Kuwait like most of the Arab countries was supporting Iraq. On one of those trips an Iranian war ship stopped us with the threat of gunfire as they thought we were carrying livestock to their enemies (We were) They searched the ship and both the captain's and my safes for papers that would show where the cargo would end up and kept us dead in the water for several hours. To ventilate a lot of the cargo decks and livestock the ship needed to be underway. The result was that several hundred sheep died through suffocation? We were eventually allowed to proceed with our cargo, It was sickening to see the distress and suffering of those sheep and quite a few more were dead on arrival at Kuwait.

I hope poor sheep are treated well now... so heartbreaking to know how things were back in the days

Olivia.


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Sorry to have to tell you that those who think the mainly humane carriage of sheep and cattle from NZ and OZ was cruel, you ain't seen nothing yet, a new port 60 miles from Port Sudan is opening at the end of this year to export sheep, camels and goats from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, I leave the thoughts of that with you, but having been to both places my own thoughts tend to think that humane practices will not be in the forefront.