Tuesday 26 February 2008
Optus Lecture Theatre, CSIRO Discovery Centre, Canberra

Each year, around one billion animals (including over 15 million farmed fish) are transported within Australia either for slaughter, for export or further finishing. Transport is generally accepted to be stressful to animals. During transport, animals are often deprived of food and water, are subject to temperature extremes, can be physically injured, are mixed with unfamiliar animals, are in close confinement, and are confronted with novel situations.

The RSPCA Australia Scientific Seminar 2008 examined the impact of transport on the welfare of animals and looked at how to minimise and manage this impact.

Background: The transport of animals in Australia is a complex issue: this is a vast country with a variety of geographical and climatic regions and a broad and diverse animal production industry ranging from cattle and sheep to farmed fish. There is also considerable variation in the distances travelled between farms and processing or other destinations. An assessment of the effects of these factors on welfare is impeded by a lack of reported data on individual land transport journeys. This also makes it difficult to monitor compliance with regulations and codes of practice, amend standards and inform consumers about actual practices.

The two main transport scenarios in Australia are the land transport of animals by road and the export of livestock by sea.

The speakers: Speakers at the Seminar examined recent research on the physiological impact of transport on animals, and the factors that influence our understanding of what is an ‘appropriate’ transport process. Case studies highlighted specific welfare aspects of land and sea transport of livestock, as well as transport of farmed fish in the aquaculture sector. The importance of developing nationally consistent standards for animal welfare and the incorporation of animal welfare in industry quality assurance schemes was also discussed. Finally, the Seminar touched on the influence of the consumer and the retail sector on welfare developments in animal transport.

Current thinking dictates that animal welfare standards should be science based, but this assumes that there is sufficient research in a given area to provide us with useful answers. The seminar aimed to identify gaps in our knowledge of the impact of transport, and provide some direction for future research. It also looked at how Government, industry and retailers/consumers can influence the direction of animal welfare improvements, including nationally consistent standards.

The keynote speaker: RSPCA Australia was particularly delighted that Dr Julia Wrathall, Head of Farm Animals at RSPCA UK, presented this year’s keynote speech on how the European Union is dealing with the long distance transport of livestock across its many borders.

The Seminar: RSPCA Australia’s annual Scientific Seminars provide a forum for the dissemination of information on key animal welfare issues to a wide audience. The Seminars are designed to cover a broad spectrum of opinion, encourage audience participation, and have a reputation for provoking lively and constructive debate.

Click here to view the final program (100Kb)

Click here to download the Abstracts (80kb PDF document)

Click on the links below to access the available Scientific Seminar papers:

Setting the scene – The context and welfare consequences of animal transport
Bidda Jones, Chief Scientist, RSPCA Australia

Impact of land transport on animal welfare (130kb PDF document)
Andrew Fisher, Research Scientist, CSIRO Livestock Industries

Impact of land transport on animal welfare: Australian case studies (land transport of sheep and cattle)
Drewe Ferguson, Research Scientist, CSIRO Livestock Industries

Impact of sea transport on animal welfare (242kb PDF document)
Clive Phillips, Professor of Animal Welfare, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, University of Queensland

Impact of sea transport on animal welfare: Australian case studies (sea transport of sheep and cattle) – Horned & polled sheep (249kb PDF document) and Response to heat (222kb PDF document)
Anne Barnes, School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Murdoch University

Long distance transport of livestock: Lessons learnt from the European Union
Julia Wrathall, Head of Farm Animals, RSPCA UK

Fish transport in the aquaculture sector: Case study (Atlantic salmon) (134kb PDF document)
Harry King, Operations Manager, Salmon Enterprises of Tasmania

Development of animal welfare standards – A balancing act
Michelle Edge, Senior Consultant, SymbioAlliance

National standards for animal welfare: Case study (land transport of livestock) (243kb PDF document)
Kevin de Witte, Manager Livestock Welfare, Animal Health Australia

Building community confidence – The role of QA in stock transport and current initiatives
Luke Fraser, Executive Director, Australian Livestock Transporters Association

This project is supported by the Commonwealth Government through a grant-in-aid administered by the Department of Finance and Administration