The live export of cattle, sheep, and pigs across long distances causes significant suffering. A growing body of evidence and public opinion supports transition to chilled meat trade instead.
Live export places animals in prolonged, inescapable conditions of stress and physical hardship that are impossible to adequately mitigate at commercial scale. Vessel crowding, temperature extremes, novel social groupings, disease exposure, and weeks without normal feeding and rest patterns cause acute and cumulative suffering. Deaths during voyages — typically from heat stroke, injury, or disease — are treated as acceptable attrition in a commercial calculation. Animals that survive arrive weakened, stressed, and often injured. The fundamental problem is that live animals' welfare needs cannot be adequately met in long-distance commercial transport conditions. The alternative — exporting processed meat — meets the same trade and food security objectives without the welfare cost.