Hundreds of Animals Killed in Transport Truck Rollover, Driver Charged With Careless Driving

The driver of a transport truck has been charged with careless driving after his truck carrying about 800 turkeys tipped and rolled upside down. The turkeys were being transported to a slaughterhouse in London, Ontario. A local organization that is dedicated to rescuing farmed animals worked quickly to save as many animals as possible, but estimated that about half the birds were killed in the crash or crushed to death under the weight of other birds in the overcrowded trailer.

This incident, along with similar tragedies that occur frequently across the country, highlights the urgent need to modernize Canada’s archaic livestock transportation regulations. Shockingly, livestock drivers in Canada are not required to have any animal handling training or even to know their responsibilities to ensure compliance with livestock transportation regulations.

On top of that, Canada’s livestock transport regulations are the worst in the Western world, and lag far behind both the European Union and the United States. Sadly, farmed animals are often trucked thousands of kilometres for up to 52 hours without any food, water, rest, or protection from the elements, resulting in the deaths of more than 8 million animals each year.

A recent undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals exposed the torture that millions of animals face in Canada’s livestock transport industry. The sickening hidden-camera video shows pigs too sick or injured to even stand being painfully shocked with electric prods, kicked, beaten, and violently rammed with heavy gates; and frightened animals transported hundreds of kilometres in sweltering heat, suffering from heat stress and dehydration.

Watch the undercover video footage here:


There is no excuse for this kind of gratuitous animal abuse in a civilized society. Please sign the petition here calling on Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz to swiftly update Canada’s livestock transportation regulations to prevent the needless suffering of turkeys, pigs, and other farmed animals.