International transport of horses for sport, slaughter, and breeding causes significant welfare harm. Evidence-based regulations and their enforcement are essential welfare safeguards.
International horse transport creates welfare challenges that compound with duration. Air transport avoids the extreme duration of sea transport but still involves confinement in unfamiliar environments, noise and vibration stress, and airway exposure to recirculated air that dramatically increases respiratory disease risk. The development of pleuropneumonia (shipping fever) following long-haul transport can be fatal and represents a serious welfare consequence of poorly managed international movement. Transport for slaughter across international borders - horses moved from the US to Canada or Mexico for slaughter, or across international boundaries for other purposes - adds the welfare harms of transport to the welfare concerns about slaughter itself. The oversight of international horse transport remains inconsistent, with welfare compromises occurring in jurisdictions where enforcement is weak.