The livestock export industry is continuing to develop more effective and efficient ways to measure and interpret animal welfare outcomes on livestock export ships.
The latest step in this process is to refine the individual animal welfare indicators currently being collected and develop an evidence based, integrative system that allows them to be accurately interpreted and aggregated.
The project will bring together experts from a range of disciplines including statistics, thermal physiology, endocrinology, and neural science. Meet the team here.
The system will offer exporters the ability to make informed decisions based on real-time data on the welfare status of their livestock and allow post-voyage analysis to support continuous improvement. It also has potential to provide an additional way for the industry to provide performance reporting to the community.
The Livestock Export RD&E Program, a collaboration between LiveCorp and Meat & Livestock Australia, has engaged the University of Western Australia (UWA) to deliver this project.
Refine the welfare indicators currently being collected by industry and establish trigger points.
Develop an animal welfare matrix to generate an objective score.
Conduct on-board data collection to validate the framework.
Integrate the framework into the industry’s data platform LIVEXCollect.
Develop tailored training modules on data collection methods.
Implement the welfare indicator system across the livestock export industry.
The project will allow industry to use its own data to drive improvements in animal welfare and respond in real time to changing animal welfare conditions during a voyage.
The system may also enable the industry to provide better and more transparent performance reporting to the community on animal welfare.