This was published 3 months ago
Indonesia told of mass cattle deaths only days after ship had left
By Zach Hope and Karuni Rompies
Singapore/Jakarta: Indonesia’s quarantine agency says it received information about 151 Australian cattle deaths onboard the transport vessel Brahman Express only after the ship unloaded and departed back to Darwin.
The country takes its biosecurity extremely seriously and would have preferred to have been told this before allowing thousands of surviving animals into its ports while the cause of death was unknown.
The ship at the centre of an emerging diplomatic muddle, the Brahman Express.Credit: Vroon
The head of its food agency said last week that normally “the cattle should not be able to enter Indonesia if they have a disease.“
The Indonesian quarantine body, Barantin, suspended trade from the Darwin export yard where the animals had been staged until the deadly condition is diagnosed.
Authorities in Australia are almost certain it was botulism, a non-contagious disease usually picked up from contaminated food. They had already ruled out particularly problematic conditions such as lumpy skin disease, and foot and mouth disease.
The timeline and statements provided by Barantin suggested the shipping company, the Netherlands-based Vroon, the Australian government or both were not particularly forthcoming about what had unfolded on the ship before, or on, its arrival.
Indonesia put most of its blame on the crew.
“The ship’s captain wrote a mortality report,” Barantin spokesman Wisnu Wisesa Putra said last week. “It is like that for every ship docking in Indonesia, they must write a mortality statement.
“What’s written on that document was that eight died. We said that to Australia at the meeting [on Wednesday] and we demanded an investigation.”
Australian laws require a shipping company to inform the Australian government within 12 hours of three or more cattle deaths on a transport vessel.
The timing of the third death was unclear, but the crew had opportunity to get rid of almost all the 151 carcasses overboard, a difficult and protracted process, especially with such a high number.
Vroon said the “issue has immediately been reported”. It did not say precisely when.
The office of Agriculture Minister Murray Watt referred questions to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF). The department said it was investigating the incident as per normal procedures and as a matter of priority.
The Brahman Express left Darwin on March 14. Logs showed it stopped in Bandar Lampung to unload some of the cattle on March 19 and arrived at its final destination of Medan on March 23.
Wisnu said DAFF told Barantin about dead cattle via a WhatsApp message on March 26.
By this time, the surviving animals had long been unloaded, and the Brahman Express was on its way back to Darwin.
Asked if Australia should have shared informed Indonesia earlier, Wisnu said, “It is better so, but DAFF just received the information from [the vessel].”
Veterinarian Dr Lynn Simpson, who has made 60 voyages on cattle transport ships, including two on the Brahman Express, said if Indonesia knew the full story it might have turned the ship away, creating an animal welfare crisis at sea.
If there were notification delays, which neither Vroon nor the Australian would confirm, this could have been the reason, she said.
Voyages considered short-haul, like Darwin to Indonesia, were not legally required to carry a vet. Simpson said this needed to change.
“The vet could’ve said, ‘We know it’s botulism. It’s a non-contagious condition. It’s not going to spread. We need to get the surviving animals off the ship immediately for health and welfare reasons’.”
The dead animals being dumped overboard was standard procedure, but Simpson warned the industry could be in for an “extra hammering” if the bodies began washing up on foreign beaches.
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