The live export of sheep — particularly long-distance sea transport from Australia and New Zealand to the Middle East — has been the subject of one of the most sustained and evidence-based animal welfare campaigns in history, with significant regulatory progress achieved.
Live sheep export represents one of the clearest cases of a trade that causes large-scale, preventable suffering to millions of animals for economic convenience. The welfare evidence against long-distance live sheep export — accumulated over decades of investigations, regulatory reviews, and scientific assessments — is overwhelming. The Australian phase-out represents a significant victory for evidence-based welfare advocacy. The campaign to end live sheep export is also a model for how sustained, evidence-led advocacy can achieve policy change: it combined undercover footage, scientific evidence, public opinion data, and political engagement over more than two decades.