Animal rights supporters have claimed the number of live calves being exported is set to double within the next year.
Shipping live veal calves to the Continent is often seen as cruel due to the large numbers of animals that are packed into each crate.
Now animal rights protesters believe the total number shipped from the Port of Dover each week could rocket to 6,000.
Last year more than 70,000 veal calves were packed into specially chartered ferries after a ban on live beef exports was lifted last May.
A report commissioned by the protest group Compassion in World Farming claims the number of live calves being exported through Dover is set to reach at least 100,000 in 2007 and could rise to 300,000 within a decade.
Campaign group director James Callaghan said the number of calves exported is rising.
He said: “The trade is definitely on the increase, and it looks like we may have 6,000 calves a week being transported through Dover within a year.”
Dover MP Gwyn Prosser, who has been lobbying ministers to get the practice banned for many years, joined dozens of anti-live exports protesters outside the port's Eastern Docks earlier this month.
Mr Prosser added: “I used to work as a chief engineer on Irish ferries carrying live veal exports, and it is an incredibly cruel trade.
“If you've seen it you will have immediately been hostile to the trade.
“They cram the calves, some only two weeks old, onto lorries in all weathers. In the panic and distress they strike their legs out through the slats.
“You see broken legs and dead calves underneath live ones, it is horrible.”
Regular ferry operators P&O, Sea France, Norfolkline and SpeedFerries refuse to carry live veal exports, but an attempt by Dover Harbour Board to ban the trade in the port resulted in a High Court injunction forcing them to allow it.
In November last year, three cattle died when the lorry containing them tipped over on an independently- chartered ship carrying live animals to Dunkerque from Dover in bad weather.
POSTED: 19/05/2007 01:15:00
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