Live animal export exposes livestock to prolonged stress and suffering during sea voyages; replacing live export with chilled meat trade eliminates these welfare harms entirely.
Live animal export for slaughter and fattening is the most extreme form of animal transport, combining all the stressors of land transport over timescales of days to weeks. Animals experience chronic hunger, thirst, heat stress, injury, disease, and psychological distress across voyages. The death toll is systematic and predictable. The existence of a direct economic alternative - chilled meat export - that achieves equivalent trade outcomes without animal transport means the welfare harm is entirely unnecessary. Nations that have banned live export demonstrate that the economic case for the ban is as strong as the welfare case.