Live export has been a controversial topic of late, with animal welfare at the forefront of the conversation. All sides of the story deserve to be told, and recently at Mobble we were inspired by an article by the Countryman on Camille Camp.
Camile Camp, 29-years-old, recently completed her first two voyages on live cattle export ships from Townsville to Vietnam and Darwin to Indonesia.
Having never been on a boat bigger than a “tiny tinny,” Ms Camp said she was nervous about seasickness, but the nerves quickly faded away as she felt right at home with the cattle.
Camp hails from Kalyeeda Station, located in the Southern Kimberleys of Northern WA. Her previous experience with cattle was extremely valuable when working on a boat of more than 8000 head.
“We each got designated decks and the cattle on those decks were our responsibility to look after.”
“I had decks one to five towards the ship’s stern, which meant I had about 3000 medium-heavyweight steers.”
Camp says that the highlight of her first voyage was “seeing my cattle walk-off at the final port knowing they’d been treated with the best care"
According to The Sheep Collective, Australia is the only country regulating and enforcing animal welfare standards across the global export industry. Australia raising the bar of animal welfare is what influences positive change on standards around the world. It makes you think, if Australia was to exit the live-export trade, then such improvements may slow or stop completely - putting animal welfare in jeopardy.
“I would definitely encourage any young person who has a love of working with livestock and a sense of adventure to try working on boats — it’s an extremely fulfilling career choice.”
For all stock-people wanting to work on the live-export ships, a four-day Shipboard Stockperson Training Course conducted by LiveCorp can be completed in Perth.
Bon voyage,
Jamima Jamieson and Jock Lawrence
Mobblers
This information was sourced from an article in the Countryman and The Sheep Collective website.