The transport of live animals across long distances for slaughter or breeding creates significant welfare challenges that have driven ongoing regulatory debate in the EU and globally.
Long-distance livestock transport creates sustained welfare harm across multiple domains simultaneously: social stress from mixing, thermal stress from inadequate ventilation, physical exhaustion from extended standing on moving vehicles, thirst and hunger from feed and water deprivation, and injury from aggression and vehicle movement. The cumulative welfare burden of a 48-hour journey involving all these stressors is difficult to fully quantify but is clearly substantial for each of the millions of animals involved annually. The slaughter-at-origin alternative — exporting chilled meat rather than live animals — addresses these welfare costs while preserving the economic value of animal products in export markets. The UK prohibition on live export for slaughter demonstrates that political will can overcome industry resistance to this welfare-superior alternative.