Pains of Quarantine

Coincidentally the facility was across a lane from an abattoir where the last great disastrous outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain was traced a few years ago. In both cases investigation disclosed that large numbers of disparate groups of animals where shipped in and out with the consequent high risk of cross contamination.

Most insurances for ports and terminals contain a head of cover relating to quarantine fines. Where an operator is shown to have been in breach of quarantine regulations and is fined, these can often be recovered from their liability insurers. The spotlight which has shone so brightly on port security in recent years does not spare the slackness of operators in cases where animals escape or are held in spite of the quarantine laws – a commonplace where ships’ dogs or exotic parrots are concerned. And many countries are extremely po-faced when it concerns quarantine. Island nations like Britain, Singapore or that vast continent of an island Australia, leave no wriggle room at all so far as quarantine regulations are concerned. Indeed the Aussies, so laid back in so many things, publish the rules and rulings of AQIS, the national quarantine authority, with enthusiasm and not much humour at all.

See www. aqis. gov. au/media2005 You can see why by watching the loading of a cargo of livestock in Fremantle bound for the prickly sensitive hallal meat markets of the Middle East.

And the spectacle of a gang of gauchostevedores loading a cargo of horses and fodder onto a specialised livestock carrier at a berth in Buenos Aires will remain in the mind of the writer always for the degree of care taken.

Today, operators must also always take into account the somewhat unpredictable activities of animal welfare enthusiasts. Fire insurers in the port of Hamburg still recall how the largest dock fire in the post-war history of the city was allegedly started by an employee of a quarantine facility who took exception to the way one terminal operator was treating the guard dogs around its perimeter.