Summary

Long-running research efforts to develop more effective and efficient ways to measure animal welfare outcomes on livestock export ships provided a platform for industry to focus on how those indicators could be accurately interpreted and combined to provide a meaningful assessment of animal welfare.

This project was a strategic collaboration between the Livestock Export RD&E Program and a research group led by the University of Western Australia (UWA) involving experts from a range of disciplines including statistics, thermal physiology, endocrinology, and neural science.

In a pioneering initiative, it developed an evidence-based, integrated model capable of combining multiple animal welfare indicators into a single framework. This provided a foundation for more consistent, objective and transparent evaluation of animal welfare outcomes across the livestock export supply chain.

This project was managed by the Livestock Export RD&E Program (LEP), a collaboration between LiveCorp and Meat & Livestock Australia.

Objectives

• Form and formalise a Consultative Committee of subject matter experts to provide oversight and technical input into the project.

• Develop animal welfare indicators and trigger points to identify indicators, integrate multiple data sources, and apply appropriate analytical methods for testing and refinement.

• Validate and refine indicators using industry data from LIVEXCollect.

• Design an integrated animal welfare assessment framework that aligns with industry agreement.

• Develop and test a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for animal welfare assessment and initiate refinement of the framework and data collection system based on testing outcomes and stakeholder feedback.

Key findings

• It is feasible to integrate multiple animal welfare indicators into a single assessment framework.

• A model was successfully developed to combine animal-based, environmental and operational data.

• Certain indicators were identified as having a greater influence on overall welfare outcomes.

• An MVP was developed to generate integrated welfare assessments.

• Further validation and refinement are required to support operational application.

Benefits to industry

A more objective and consistent interpretation of animal welfare outcomes improves the ability of exporters and stakeholders to assess welfare performance across voyages and conditions. This provides a foundation for benchmarking and continuous improvement, helping the industry meet regulatory expectations and evolving community standards.