The live export of sheep over long distances causes well-documented welfare harm that export bans and slaughter-at-origin policies can eliminate.
Live export of sheep represents one of the most widely documented and publicly visible forms of large-scale animal welfare failure. The conditions of long-distance maritime transport, combined with extremes of temperature, disease pressure, and unfamiliar social groupings, create suffering at a scale that is difficult to mitigate through regulation alone. The fundamental problem is that the welfare costs of the journey cannot be reduced below a significant threshold regardless of vessel quality or oversight. This is why the most effective welfare intervention is not improved regulation of live export but its replacement with slaughter-at-origin and chilled meat trade, a transition that several major exporting countries have pursued with broadly positive economic outcomes alongside the welfare gains.