A ship carrying almost 15,000 sheep overturned on Sunday in the Black Sea near Romania, according to news reports, setting off a desperate effort to rescue the animals and renewing a focus on the livestock shipping industry, which has been previously criticised for its treatment of animals.

It was not immediately clear what caused the ship, the Queen Hind, to overturn near the port city of Constanta shortly after it departed for Saudi Arabia. The ship’s crew, 20 people from Syria and one from Lebanon, were all rescued, Ana-Maria Stoica, a spokeswoman for the rescuers, told Agence France-Presse.

The fate of the sheep was less certain. Ms Stoica said 32 sheep had been rescued, including two that were in the water. “The rescue operation is ongoing,” she said. “We hope that the sheep inside the ship’s hold are still alive.” It was not clear which shipping company was operating the vessel. The Romanian rescue team could not immediately be reached on Sunday night. The Queen Hind was built in 1980 and is more than 82m long (270 ft), according to MarineTraffic, a website that tracks shipping information. Pictures of the ship posted online showed it on its side, tethered to a smaller boat, with the animals’ legs and other body parts dangling out of an enclosed area. Videos showed rescuers carrying about a dozen of the sheep in the back of another smaller boat.

Sheep rescued from the capsized livestock transpot vessel, on board of a border police boat in the Midia Black Sea. Photograph: IGSURomania/AFP

It is possible the sheep were destined to be slaughtered in Saudi Arabia in accordance with Islamic guidelines known as halal, one livestock expert said. But she questioned whether there was a more humane way to procure that many sheep. “What they’re doing on those ships I couldn’t even comprehend,” Susan Schoenian, a sheep and goat specialist at the University of Maryland Extension, said on Sunday. Ms Schoenian noted there are certified halal slaughterhouses in the European Union, which includes Romania. “Why move live animals when you can slaughter them and move meat?” Ms Schoenian said. “It can be certified halal. It would provide jobs for Romanians.” Ms Schoenian said transporting that many sheep is a logistical challenge, and that while the sheeps’ survival instincts could have kicked in after the ship overturned, they would have likely been weighted down in the water by their long fleece.

“The average person doesn’t understand, when you transport animals, you don’t want to pack them in like sardines but we also don’t want to give them too much room,” she said. About 70,000 sheep are exported from Romania every year, particularly to countries in the Persian Gulf and North Africa, according to an August resolution from the European Parliament calling for Romania to improve treatment of the animals. In April 2018, a video emerged showing thousands of sheep dying from heat stress onboard a ship travelling from Australia to the Middle East, prompting the Australian government to investigate.–New York Times