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Conditions On These Ships Are So Bad Animals Literally Cook From The Inside Out

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(Caution: Graphic images.)Dr. Lynn Simpson, an Australian veterinary expert, has come forward to discuss the horror that she witnessed during her time on a "live export" cargo ship.

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Source: Dr. Lynn Simpson

Live export ships take millions of animals each year from countries like Australia to countries whose demands for meat are not met with their own farms, mostly in the Middle East and Asia.She worked as a veterinarian on these boats for years, to try and minimize the intense suffering that these animals were facing every day.

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Source: Dr. Lynn Simpson

The animals, typically sheep and cattle, are tightly packed into rows of enclosures. The intense heat generated in the bowels of the ship means that animals die of heatstroke all the time. Often, they are coming from an Australian winter and headed to a Northern summer, shocking their systems.The crew will zigzag the ship back and forth to try and get them a cross breeze, but often it is too late. The animals are sometimes found piled on top of each other fighting for airspace or craning their necks through the bars, searching for oxygen.

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Source: Dr. Lynn Simpson

Dr. Simpson remembers finding a sheep dead; when she took the animal's temperature and found it was over 116 degrees Fahrenheit. The sheep was cooking from the inside.The fat had started to melt and muscles were decomposing.

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Source: Dr. Lynn Simpson

Pregnant sheep were not allowed on board the ship, but many slipped through the cracks. Dr. Simpson was in charge of euthanizing the lambs when they were born, as one baby would risk the whole shipment being rejected when they arrived at port.She wrote for Splash247:

The crew were all so sad, many missing their children terribly ... [They] would challenge me as to why we had to [kill newborns]. Grown men cried. Some tried to hide lambs. It was heartbreaking.
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Source: Dr. Lynn Simpson

The conditions of these ships are shocking, and many people don't even realize this is going on. But several experts like Dr. Simpson are stepping up to unmask the cruelty of these practices.You can help encourage the Australian government to end this practice by signing this petitionor donating to Animals Australiawhich is fighting to shut down this industry. You can also read more of Dr. Simpson's heartbreaking testimony,here.

H/t: The Dodo

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