Summary

The Australian government, livestock industry (including producers and veterinarians), media, animal welfare groups and the general public have shown a keen interest in the care and welfare of sheep, cattle and goats being exported live from Australia.

Each year, the Australian livestock export industry provides a breakdown of how many sheep, cattle and goats were exported, the month that shipments left Australia, and the sea ports or airports where livestock were loaded and unloaded. This includes details of how many animals were safety delivered and how many died along the way, but does not specify the cause of death.

This project summarised the performance of the Australian livestock export industry in 2014. The overall number of cattle exported from Australia in 2014 rose by 52% compared to 2013, to a record of 1.28 million.

The performance reports provide consistent, comparable data that can be matched against previous years. This acts as a gauge of how the Australian livestock export industry is performing over time and encourages continuous improvement.

Objectives

This project provided data for sheep, cattle and goats exported live from Australia during 2014 by sea and air, including time of year, age and sex of the animals, and the number that died during export.

The collection of this information has enabled the long-term mapping of the Australian livestock export industry’s overall performance year on year.

Key findings

In 2014:

• There were 2.24 million sheep exported by sea. Of these, 0.71% died during the voyages, which was higher than the rate of 0.68% the previous year.

• There were 39,227 sheep exported by air. Of these, 0.45% died during the flights, which was higher than the rate of 0.13% the previous year. There was one flight where 7.91% of sheep died (an investigation concluded it was most likely due to inadequate ventilation). If that was excluded, the mortality rate for 2014 would have been 0.01%.

• There were 1.28 million cattle exported by sea. Of these, 0.12% died during the voyages, which was higher than the 0.11% the previous year. There were zero mortalities on 35% of all cattle voyages.

• There were 9,458 cattle exported by air. All were successfully delivered to their destinations.

• There were 154 goats exported by sea. All were successfully delivered to their destinations.

• There were 86,705 goats exported by air. Of these, 0.013% died during the flight, which was higher than the rate of 0.012% the previous year.

Benefits to industry

Ongoing analysis of the performance of the Australian livestock export industry, especially in areas of key interest such as animal welfare, provides valuable data that enables continued improvement in management practices.

Future research and recommendations

It is recommended that this project continue to be funded and reported on an annual basis in the future.

• A formatting change introduced for this report should continue, with figures extended to the second decimal place to illustrate differences that may not be apparent with one decimal place.

• The inclusion of a separate analysis for cattle, sheep and goats exported by air, introduced in 2013, should continue.

• The inclusion of a graph on ‘delivery success rates’ to show the percentage of cattle, sheep and goats successfully delivered by sea to their destinations, introduced in 2013, should continue.

• Turkey and the Black Sea should continue to be reported as South-East Europe, as they are no longer minor, miscellaneous destinations.