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 successfully 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 2015. The year saw a record 1.31 million cattle exported from Australia, and record number of goats transported by air.

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 2015 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 2015:

• There were 2.01 million sheep exported by sea. Of these, 0.62% died during the voyages, which is lower than the rate of 0.71% the previous year, and a new record low since 2006.

• There were 56,945 sheep exported by air. Of these, 0.24% died during the flights, which is lower than the rate of 0.45% the previous year

• There were 1.31 million cattle exported by sea. Of these 0.10% died during the voyage – this was lower than the rate of 0.12% the previous year.

• There were 11,315 cattle exports by air. Of these 0.02% died during the flights, compared to zero fatalities the previous year.

• There were 1,000 goats exported by sea. All were successfully delivered to their destinations.

• There were 86,925 goats exported by air. Of these 0.085% died during the flights, which is an increase from 0.013% 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 the welfare of animals, 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.

• A formatting change introduced in 2014 should continue, with figures extended to the second decimal place to illustrate differences that may not be apparent with one decimal place.

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

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