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Why I Became a Member of Vets Against Live Exports (VALE)

Why I Became a Member of Vets Against Live Exports (VALE)

The 5 Domains of Animal Welfare summarises the principles that everyone should follow when caring for animals, whether they be the family pet or a production animal. These 5 categories are:



1. Nutrition (appropriate food and water)
2. Environment (suitable shelter, enough room, somewhere comfortable to rest)
3. Health (preventative health and illnesses attended to quickly)
4. Behaviour (ability to display natural/normal behaviour)
5. Mental state (the overall physiological wellbeing of the animal which is influenced by the previous 4 categories)

As caring pet owners, you are constantly endeavouring to fulfil these 5 requirements.

The live export industry sends over three million production animals (mainly sheep and cattle) from Western Australian ports each year. It is a source of income for producers and supporters of the industry claim that it is necessary due to limited refrigeration in some countries as well as religious slaughtering practices. 

Meat from Australian abattoirs is exported frozen or chilled to over fifty countries with this industry generating seven times the amount earned from live exports. Many of the countries that Australia sends live exports to also import chilled/frozen meat from Australia. You can learn more on this RSPCA report. 

What Are the Issues with Live Export?

The major issue with the live export industry is that it fails miserably on each of the Animal Welfare Domains. 

Nutrition (fail)–Before boarding a ship animals may already be stressed by food and water deprivation as a result of long transportation by road or rail to WA Ports. Once on the vessel, there can be spoiled food, insufficient food (not enough loaded or fed out) and issues with access to food troughs. Water supplies are often inadequate. Many sheep and some cattle do not adapt well to the pelleted food rations on-board ships. Starvation is still the most common cause of live sheep deaths.

Environment (fail)–Overcrowding (as many as 70,000 sheep on a vessel), metal floors with no bedding material, nowhere to comfortably rest, temperature extremes–many voyages sail from Australian winters into the tropics and then into the Persian Gulf. Manure builds up to unacceptable levels and contributes to toxic ammonia gas. Noise is constant and the lights are on for 24h/day.

Health (fail)–Respiratory infections (due to poor ventilation, ammonia build up and overcrowding), gut upsets, lameness/injuries, sea sickness and starvation. There is very limited veterinary care, with only one veterinarian on board if there is a veterinarian at all (most voyages do not have veterinarians). Deaths are common on long haul voyages. Death rates of up to 1% of sheep and 0.5% of cattle do not warrant further investigation. To put this in perspective, on a voyage of 70,000 sheep, a death rate of less than 700 is deemed acceptable.

Behaviour (fail)—A sea voyage living in crowded accommodation for weeks with no ability to express natural/normal behaviour. Less than 50% of cattle can lay down at the same time and then not comfortably.

Mental state (fail)—Those animals that survive the voyage are already physically and mentally stressed, only to be unloaded in a foreign country and subject to further handling stress and slaughtering methods beyond our control. 

What Needs to Happen? 

Live export is cruel and no matter what band-aid solutions are suggested by the Government and industry, it can never pass the 5 Domains Model of Animal Welfare.

A 2018 survey commissioned by RSPCA Australia found that around 75 per cent of Australians want an end to live export.

From an economic and environmental perspective, it is expensive, wasteful and unsustainable.

The live animal export industry needs to be phased out in favour of an increased trade in boxed and chilled meat from animals that have been humanely slaughtered here in Australia. The infrastructure already exists in Western Australia with the ability to increase the processing ability of the state’s abattoirs to easily process the sheep currently being exported live. This could also increase employment in regional centres where the abattoirs are located.

Paul Pitney BVSc–Golf Course Veterinary Hospital, Taree.