Thousands of cows could starve to death on a livestock carrier being denied permission to dock in Spain, a British-run animal charity has warned.

Susan Weeding, co-owner of the Easy Care Horse Rescue Centre near Torrevieja, has started a petition to try and save the cattle.

The vessel, which is travelling from Rio Grande in Brazil to Derince in Turkey, was due to dock in Cartagena to pick up food for the 5,500 young cows on board.

Majbd Bid, operations manager at the Lebanese company which owns the vessel, told Sky News it was not allowed to dock because of a legal dispute with a Spanish fuel company.

He added that he was "very afraid" for the cows and believes there is only one day left to save them.


Mrs Weeding says a member of staff at the Lebanese firm, named Talia Shipping Line Co Sarl, contacted her on Saturday when it became clear the ship wouldn't be allowed to dock.

Image: The Julia AK was denied permission to dock in Spain. Pic: Talia Shipping Line Co Sarl

The charity owner, originally from Norfolk in the UK, told Sky News: "It seemed it all kicked off on Friday evening when the people at the company found out they were going to be denied access.

"It being the weekend they couldn't get hold of anybody, so a lady from Lebanon contacted me in desperation.

"They Googled animal charities and mine came up."

Mrs Weeding's petition had reached nearly 750 of its 1000 signatures target by Tuesday morning.

The charity owner plans to hand the petition to the Cartagena port authority which is not allowing the vessel to dock.

She continued: "If they won't allow food out to the port, there must be a way to get food out to the boat, because the actual food is waiting there in Cartagena to be loaded onto the boat."

Ms Weeding said she believes the ship was near Gibraltar yesterday but is now "more or less" off the coast of Cartagena.

Mr Bid said: "We won't know when or how this will be resolved.

"We are very afraid the 5,500 young cattle we have on the ship.

"They are without food and we only have one day left to save them.

"The ship is not the most important thing for us, it's the cattle and animal welfare."