Live cattle export by sea involves voyages of days to weeks under stressful conditions. Despite reforms, mortality events and animal suffering during live export continue to generate serious welfare concerns.
Live export represents one of the most controversial areas of farm animal welfare because it combines multiple stressors simultaneously: the stress of loading and handling, unfamiliar environments, ship motion, close confinement with unfamiliar animals, disrupted feeding and drinking patterns, heat, humidity, and ammonia from accumulated waste. Individual animals cannot escape any of these stressors for the duration of a voyage that may last weeks. Mass mortality events - where hundreds or thousands of animals die of heat stress on a single voyage - represent catastrophic welfare failures. Even without mortality, the chronic stress of live export significantly degrades animal welfare. Chilled and frozen meat trade achieves the same economic outcomes without requiring animals to endure voyages.