"A friend of mine is currently travelling to Wellington and snapped these emaciated dairy cows inside what resembles a concentration camp truck, on their way to a slaughterhouse," he wrote.
Images taken of emaciated cattle being transported from Picton to Wellington on Sunday. Photo / Supplied
"Some of the poor animals don't even have any shade for the harrowing three hour trip in the sun."
Huriwai questioned Minister of Agriculture Damien O'Connor and Dairy NZ, writing "is this acceptable? Anything to say?".
The person who took the images, who wanted to be known only as Ben, said he grew up on a farm so has "a bit of an idea of what healthy cows look like".
"And those ones were far too skinny to be healthy," he said.
"I know a few people, Chris Huriwai being one of them, who know what to do in that situation so I took a few pictures and sent them to him.
"He then put them on the internet and everyone started talking about them."
Ben said the response to the images had been "polarising".
"There seems to be a lot of aggression from farmers who are saying it is stupid, biased and there is nothing wrong with the cows.
"Then there is other people who can't believe it. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground.
"I think it highlights the problem with the way we are farming here in New Zealand."
Ben said increasing stock numbers, feed being pushed to its "absolute limit", and extreme weather conditions were resulting in "so many hungry cows".
"I took the images so more people would see this and realise it is not a one off occurrence. There was an article like this about three years ago which was almost exactly the same, with someone on the ferry who took photos of the cows.
"If it is shown as not an isolated occurrence then maybe people will start to think of others ways to fix it."
SAFE head of campaigns Marianne Macdonald said she was appalled to see the emaciated state of these cows. Photo / Supplied
SAFE head of campaigns Marianne Macdonald said she was appalled to see the emaciated state of these cows.
"Not only do they have to endure being transported by ferry with no shelter, but they're also clearly starving.
"The Ministry for Primary Industries should definitely be doing an investigation, especially given that many farmers and animal transport staff have been commenting that this is a common sight.
"However, this is yet another case where investigations don't take place until animal neglect and cruelty are made public by caring whistleblowers. If we had an effective system of animal welfare monitoring in New Zealand, the terrible condition of these cows would have been flagged and investigated much sooner," she said.
Macdonald said SAFE wants the Government to strip MPI of its animal welfare responsibilities and create a stand-alone animal welfare regulatory and enforcement agency "that will be much more pro-active in putting animal welfare first".
An MPI spokeswoman said there are regulations in place to ensure the welfare of animals being transported.
"Owners and transporters must ensure that animals are fit for transport, and that minimum standards of care can be met for the duration of their journey," she said.
"There are systems in place to monitor compliance with the regulations – including MPI Verification Services inspectors working at all meat processing sites to verify that the body condition of animals arriving meets minimum standards.
"Where there is evidence of mistreatment of animals MPI will undertake enforcement action which may include court prosecution."
The spokeswoman said information from the public is - and will always be - critically important.
"We encourage people to call our Animal Welfare line directly if they see anything to raise concern about the welfare of animals."
