On December 17, 2009, a large but largely rusted tub of a ship, the MV Danny F II, sunk off the coast of Lebanon taking with her 44 humans (accounts vary with numbers of people from 39 to 47 rescued) and (as far as we can determine) a record amount of domestic animals.
Digging Deeper
The doomed ship was built in 1976 as a car ferry, but had been converted to carrying bulk live animals for slaughter, a practice long opposed by animal rights activists. A tad over 664 feet long and over 92 feet wide, the big ship displaced nearly 15,000 tons. At her size, 28,000 square meters of cargo space, she was permitted to carry a maximum of 82,000 sheep. On her fateful voyage from Uruguay to Syria, she carried a heavy load of 17,932 head of cattle and 10,224 sheep, along with 77 humans (more or less).
