Long-distance cattle transport causes significant welfare harm through stress, injury, dehydration, and exhaustion, with regulatory improvements and alternative practices offering meaningful welfare gains.
Cattle transported long distances experience cumulative welfare harm from social disruption through mixing unfamiliar animals, space restriction preventing normal posture maintenance, temperature extremes, dehydration from inadequate water provision, and the fatigue of continuous movement. Each hour of transport adds to the cumulative welfare deficit. Regulatory journey time limits address the most egregious cases but enforcement remains a challenge. Supporting local abattoirs, shorter supply chains, and high animal welfare transport operators directly reduces transport welfare harm for individual animals.