Transcript
Brian: This episode contains graphic descriptions of animal suffering that some listeners may find disturbing.
Lynn: It's just, it's really tough on these animals. I mean, think about it, you've got an animal that grows wool to make winter clothing, and we're shoving it into these hot, humid environments. So it just, it makes no scientific sense whatsoever to do that.
Brian: Hello and welcome to RSPCA Australia's Great and Small Talk, where we discuss the pressing welfare issues animals face in Australia. I'm Brian Daly, and today we're returning to a hot topic we've covered several times on this podcast, the live export of sheep from Australia, and here to bring us up to speed with the latest developments, are Dr Suzie Fowler, Chief Science Officer at RSPCA Australia, and Dr Lynn Simpson, who served as the on-board vet for 57 live export voyages, and whose reports to the Department of Agriculture played a major role in exposing the welfare issues involved in the industry. Suzie and Lynn, welcome to the podcast.
Lynn: Thank you.
Suzie: Thanks Brian, great to be here.
Brian: Now the live export of sheep from Australia has been a contentious issue for decades. As far back as 1985, a review of the live sheep trade by the Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare reported if a decision were to be made on the future of the trade, purely on animal welfare grounds, there is enough evidence to stop the trade. Forty years later, we're finally seeing progress on this issue. Suzie and Lynn, can you catch us up on the latest developments regarding live sheep exports?
Suzie: Well, we are very pleased to be able to share that in July last year, legislation was passed by the government to end live sheep export by the first of May 2028. The legislation sets a really specific date and provides a transition package for the industry, and those involved in the supply chain, to support them to phase out of the industry. In the meantime, the export of live sheep by sea continues to occur from Australia to various countries around the world, including the Middle East and other destinations. But we're very pleased that the government has been bold enough to legislate that end date by 2028.
Lynn: And I'd like to add to that, that, you know, one of the important things about that is it provides certainty for farmers so they know how to plan for their future. And it also provides certainty for the meat processing sectors as well, so that we can have a clean transition, and hopefully it goes smoothly for everyone.
Brian: And can you remind us again of the welfare issues and what these sheep experience during these voyages?
Suzie: Yeah, I think it might be helpful first to paint a picture of what good welfare looks like for sheep that are raised for meat and wool. I think it's really important to recognise that sheep are sentient, so they can experience pain, suffering, distress, but also joy and happiness. And sheep are flock animals. They prefer to be kept with other sheep that they're familiar with. In a natural environment, they would graze for many hours of a day, and then they spend the rest of the day ruminating, which is digesting that food that they're grazing on, and resting as well. They like to have choice, to move about freely and to choose when to eat, when to rest, when to drink water, when to move to a different area of the paddock and lie down, perhaps. And we know that in the realities of farming, sheep have to be transported and handled, but that should be done quietly and as calmly as possible. And when it does come time to kill sheep, it should be done as humanely as possible, and that should be done with stunning prior to killing the sheep. Unfortunately, the reality of live sheep export trade is that facilitating those good welfare outcomes is pretty much impossible for animals that are put through live sheep export, and that hasn't really changed over many years. From a science perspective, the research demonstrates that there are really numerous risks to animal welfare that are inherent to the trade. I think one of the parts that gets overlooked and pushed aside by those who want to see the industry continue is the cumulative effects of the handling, the transport and the environment on the ship itself, that all those stresses build up and create such significant animal welfare consequence for the animals and enhanced risk as well to their daily welfare. First of all, they're taken from the farm and boated on a truck and taken, perhaps to a sale yard or to a feedlot, and then they have to be kept there for a few days. Generally, they're introduced to new feed in that feedlot situation, which is a pellet, because that's the only type of feed that can be provided on mass on a live sheep export vessel. And some sheep don't adapt well to that feed, because they're so used to grazing pasture. Ideally for the sheep that do adapt well, they're then transported onto the vessel itself, and obviously there's stresses in there as well. So they're on that vessel for three or four weeks, in a perfect situation. But we do know disasters occur, and sometimes they end up on there for much longer and we recently had only in 2024 the disaster of the MV Bahijah, that was almost three quarters of the way, I think, to its destination, and had to turn all the way back to Fremantle port and be docked there for a period of time. So those sheep were on the vessel for much longer than four weeks. And it ended up being about two months of journey time for those for those animals, and then during that time, they're exposed to 24/7 loud noises from the engine and the ventilation shafts as well. It's hot and humid conditions in many situations, in particular when they're passing over the equator. We know that that is a very tropical area, so hot and humid on the vessel. There is artificial lighting. Perhaps they may be handled well, but they're often not handled well. The sheep that aren't feeding well that they suffer what's called "inanition", so that can lead to starvation because they're not eating the pellets, and they suffer gastrointestinal disease and end up sometimes dying on the vessel as well. And so all of these stresses build up over time, and they're unavoidable to occur on a live sheep export vessel. Unfortunately, the lucky ones that do get all the way to the end, aren't so lucky in reality, because often, once they reach the country of destination, they're offloaded, either sent to a feedlot or straight to abattoir. And at the abattoir they're often killed without stunning, which means that they're suffering right up until they die. And so those cumulative stresses, that whole journey, leads to layer upon layer and piling on of more assaults to their welfare and their wellbeing throughout the journey. Lynn, you might be able to talk more to the practical impacts as well.
Lynn: Sure, so everything Suzie has said is correct. The cumulative stress that these animals experience is insane when you compare it, especially to the alternative, which would have been being put on a truck in their farm and then taken to the nearest processing facility. And that's the ... the ideal that we want animals to have is the shortest point of travel from where they're born to where they meet their end. And the ships do the complete opposite of that, and they stretch it out. And as such, the animals, you know, they hit a barrage of stresses, as explained, you know, 24/7 light, really loud environment. The humidity is incredible. Like even just after being loaded for a couple of days on these ships, the humidity and heat rises just from the body heat of these animals building up in the ships. You know, at the equator, it gets worse. And in the northern hemisphere summer, even though we have a moratorium, we still skirt into and out of that hot period in the Middle East, which is still unacceptable. And it's just ... it's really tough on these animals. I mean, think about it, you've got an animal that grows wool to make winter clothing, and we're shoving it into these hot, humid environments. So it just ... it makes no scientific sense whatsoever to do that, and they do stress to the point that, on an individual level, the respiratory rates of these animals, which we monitor on the ships every day, I've had respiratory rates of certain animals that are up to 270 breaths per minute, which is essentially panting and not getting a proper oxygen exchange. And if you think about that, or if you try to do it, you'll soon sort of fall over. This means that the animals, they can't they can't breathe properly, they can't eat, they can't drink to try and cool down, they end up with dehydration. Now outside of the shipping environment, an average respiratory rate for a sheep is about 35 breaths per minute, so you can tell that we're instantly putting them under a heap of physiological stress by having them do this. And it's really common to have respiratory rates on a good day on the ship at about 140 breaths per minute. So you know, already in what we get conditioned on the ships to think is less stressful than on the really bad days, it's still really bad, but we're conditioned to it. So, so there's these animals are experiencing that during a heat stress incident. When animals have that kind of event happen during a voyage, it doesn't happen on every voyage, but it can. And it can happen either through natural incident, like you go through a particularly hot part of the world that's sitting in a bit of a stupor, or you can have ventilation failures, so the animals don't have enough fresh air for whatever reason, they don't have the heat and the exhaust air being pumped out. So these animals get to a point where, and some people have seen it in some exposes, but effectually, they get to a point where they're trying to stand up and they've got their front legs spread apart as much as they can so that they can try and get some air circulating underneath them as best they can in a crowded environment. They often crowd around any ventilation system, if it is working, they stick their heads out through the railings to try and get fresh air away from their friends, to try and maximise any available air space that they might get. Once they get overwhelmed and they don't have enough oxygen in their blood supply, they'll collapse. And they collapse like they've been shot. So when it's really bad, they'll just be collapsing, bang, bang, bang, and their little friends will actually step on them so they can get their heads above other animals. So, you know, they're not trying to be nasty, but they're trying to reach fresh air. But meanwhile, the little guy underneath, who's probably got very little chance of surviving, is already being pushed upon extra because these animals are standing onto top of them, and it just sort of cascades into a nasty cycle with heat stress. And then even if you you manage to get out of the heat stress event, and the temperature starts to come down, or the ventilation is fixed, you've got a lag of about five days where you'll then see ... so say, one example, I had really hot, really hot weather we went through for two hours. We lost about 500-700 animals in that period, and they die for hours afterwards. And then, five days later, we get another wave of what looks like a mysterious death, but it'll just be through things like kidney failure from that really extreme heat stress and dehydration event. So the animals have suffered that whole time, but they've not looked like an animal in extreme distress, because they're just sort of winding down slowly. So that's a nasty side of heat stress, and that can happen on any voyage whatsoever. Disease spread is a worry. So we see a lot of pneumonia. We see a lot of salmonella, as Suzie said, a lot of gut problems that contribute to animals not eating, or they're just not used to eating.
Brian: It's really distressing to hear those accounts, and so it seems fairly obvious that the exports have to stop.
Lynn: Absolutely it's the only solution. Despite years and years of regulation and changes to the laws that these exporters have to follow, we're still seeing incidents happen aboard these ships, and we know that the animal welfare risks are unavoidable, and they're inherent to the actual practice of putting 10s of 1000s of animals on a live export vessel. We know that the industry has made some changes over the years, mostly through forced regulation. Lynn referred to the northern hemisphere summer prohibition, which is a period of time in the hottest months of the year in the northern hemisphere, that they're not allowed to export Australian animals to areas like the Red Sea that captures that really, really hot, humid weather. But they do still export on the shoulder period, so close to that period, and they still have to transport the animals over the equator, which is still hot and humid conditions. So quite a few years ago, after some very significant disasters, the government at the time decided to put independent observer on some of the vessels, and unfortunately, they're not on there frequently enough, there's been about 57 or so live sheep export vessels that have had an independent observer on board who reports publicly on what they find. And in those reports, which RSPCA did a review of last year, there are still 60% of those journeys that are showing heat stress events for these sheep, and 30% of the journeys are actually showing severe heat stress, which is those situations that the sheep are extending their necks and holding their bodies to really try and gasp as much cool air, if it was available, you know, trying to pant and exchange heat as best possible to relieve that heat stress. So although they have avoided perhaps some of the really significant mortality events that occurred back in 2017, for example, with the Awassi Express, and those events might be happening less frequently, with significant deaths. We do know that there is still significant animal welfare consequences on board these vessels, and as a result, ending the trade from Australia is really the only way to look after Australian sheep.
Brian: So it really is unfixable.
Lynn: Brian, there's certainly things that we cannot fix about shipping. We can adjust when we sail. We can adjust how many animals we put on board. The things that we can't fix is we can't influence the temperatures that these animals are going to sail through in the Middle East. And like I said, we can get hot spikes and whatnot. But the very inherent shipping risks that we do experience is a lot of mechanical failures and non-ideal events. So we can lose propulsion. So if an engine breaks down, for example, we can lose steering. These are all things that I've had happen at sea. And the result of losing propulsion and or steering, and depending on how long it takes to fix these, these issues, is the ship slows down, and we only have a certain amount of fodder and a certain amount of water on board. So you know, we're limited by how long these animals can be there, by those kind of life support necessities. So the slower we go, the more fodder we're going to consume, and the more risk we are of actively starving animals by a lack of provisions. We can have ventilation failures. I've been on a lot of ships with ventilation failures, and often they're only temporary. They might be, you know, 15-20 minutes, but if they go over an hour, you start to really smell the gasses build up, and it becomes a real health risk, even for the crew. And we're not allowed in there when there's a ventilation failure. And they reckon with an hour or two of an average ship breaking down with ventilation, you'll start to see deaths. So I've, I think the longest is about an hour and fifteen I've had, and we had animals that were certainly really struggling. So ... so that's something that can't be mitigated by policy on land. Water production, we make our own water at sea with fresh water osmosis machines, reverse osmosis machines, but if they break down, and I've had one breakdown, then we're stuffed because the animals don't have a large reserve of fresh water on the ships, we have to make it every day. Even little issues, like I was on one voyage where the pellets had too much salt in them, and as a result, we were running out of water, because the animals were getting too thirsty and they wanted more more water than they would normally be provided with. So ... so little things like that can be a problem. Ships capsize. So we've had multiple ships that we're aware of actually capsize even when tied up alongside. So an example would be the Queen Hind. She was only ... she wasn't ... she just left the port, and she was only about 200 meters from her birth, so not in deep water, and she fell over due to a loading issue that she had, and didn't totally go underwater. But I think 180 of the 15,000 animals survived; the rest of them drowned and were trapped in that ship and she had to be scrapped, cut up and scrapped. And another ship, the Gulf Livestock, you know, just sunk off Japan during terrible weather. And one of the issues with that ship was possibly a concern of running out of fodder because of fodder requirements and limitations to what these ships can carry. We have political issues that we have to keep in mind. So I was on the Cormo Express when she was first rejected out of Saudi Arabia, and they rejected us based on a disease called "scabby mouth", which every voyage I've ever been on with sheep has got, and it's very hard to eliminate in your reject inspections from loading so, and that was just a that was really a trade issue going on in Saudi against somebody else, but they used that disease against us. And then the Cormo Express, we managed to get that voyage unloaded, but the month later, with the subsequent voyage that one, they put their foot down and they rejected it based on the same issue, totally all fabricated, although if they looked hard enough, they would have found scabby mouth, and that became the Cormo Express incident that went all around the world through the media and was a diabolical disaster for the animals. On the scabby mouth issue, we also had a ship called the Ocean Drover; got rejected from Bahrain with that disease and then was rerouted to Pakistan, and there was a terrible welfare outcome, or poor welfare outcome, for the sheep in Pakistan. We've got pirates off Somalia that are starting to ramp up again. They were a big problem in the late 10s and now they're starting up again. We've got the Houthis, which pose a very real risk for the animals on board, to the point that the government won't allow independent observers to join the ships that go through areas that are at risk from the Houthis, which basically is the Mediterranean and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden now, but they are allowing the the animals to go so I can't see the rationale for that. It's certainly not safe for 10s of 1000s of animals, and essentially we just lose control of the welfare once these animals leave port. We can't control it, but we can control it if it's all shore based in Australia.
Brian: You talk about the ships breaking down and the mechanical failures. What are these ships like? What's the fleet like?
Lynn: Sure, so the fleet is interesting, and it's very dynamic. It's not locked into one country or the other. Obviously, they float around in a global nature, as ships do. When I started in the 90s, there were about 350 ships on the planet that were doing this trade, and there was over 80 that were trading out of Australia. So we've had a generic phase out already to the point that we've got about 116 ships on the globe now, and only 20 operating out of Australia. And of those 20, about 16 of them are primarily cattle ships, so they won't be carrying live sheep. So really, we've got four ships that will carry sheep, and as a result, we've lost a huge carrying capacity. So even if a farmer really wanted to send animals by live export, there's very little opportunity for them to do so. And as these ships age, they're the oldest saltwater fleet in the world. The average age is about 40. So in every other shipping sector, ships are normally scrapped at about the age of 25 due to the mechanical and maintenance concerns and risk, etc. So the fact that we've got this really old fleet means that we're running a much higher mechanical failure risk with these ... these ships, which is kind of insulting, considering their their cargo is 100% sentient and live, so, you know, we're not exporting tins of soup, and if they ended up at the bottom of the ocean, no one's really going to give a damn. But you know, with live animals, it should be considered so much differently. So globally, we're seeing a decrease in the trade. But as far as Australia goes, we really need to give the farmers some certainty with a timeline of when they should be modeling their businesses to get out of this trade, so that they don't get caught unexpectedly with ships that then decide to just leave and not come back. And then, if we've got a timeline the meat processing, people can have a backup plan for these farmers as well. So I think that's really important and really prudent of the government to be providing this.
Brian: And the government's also announced a transition package in the lead up to the phase out, and I guess that would go hand-in-hand with having a legislated date?
Suzie: Yeah, absolutely. The RSPCA completely agrees with the government providing a transition package. It's a really important point in time for the government to work with, not just farmers, but others involved in the supply chain to work towards that transition with that very clear end date of 1 May 2028. What it allows for is that expansion of processing plants in Western Australia and all the associated equipment that needs to come with that, cool rooms and things, staffing and other resourcing and infrastructure, but also for farmers to have the opportunity to adapt how they operate their farming systems. We certainly understand that it's not an overnight change that can happen. There are some farmers who are looking at genetic changes or changing their farming systems altogether, and we appreciate that, and that's why we're very supportive of the government introducing the financial transition package, which they've also topped up over the last six months or so to ensure that farmers can still be successful long term into the future, after a period of adaptation, to ensure the long term future of the Western Australian sheep industry.
Brian: It sounds like the phase out really will bring a better future for these sheep, as you were saying earlier on, Suzie, looking at the best outcome for these sheep in a welfare sense, the positives of a legislated date will be good for sheep and the farmers and for Australia.
Suzie: Yeah, I think the positives are really many. The transition to a boxed and chilled meat trade over the live sheep export trade has really great promise. We have seen over the last 12 to 18 months, a really significant growth in the sheep and meat and mutton trade internationally, and that is as a result of a real drive from the government and from others to market that product internationally. And there's new markets coming on board all the time, including the US, but including India and other countries who really want to see more of that boxed and chilled meat product. So there is opportunity to grow that and invest and expand it further. We've also started to see some commitments from the processing sector to expand their capacity in Western Australia, which will mean more jobs on Australian shores and more investment in Australian infrastructure. And after making such a significant move forward in animal welfare, what it also demonstrates to the world is that Australia want to be world leaders in animal welfare regulation and animal welfare laws, and so that actually strengthens our reputation internationally for future trade when we're working on trade agreements with other countries. What it also means is that we can still engage with other countries on improvements in animal welfare, whether that be for countries who are still engaging in live sheep export or for other ... other mechanisms. We are very well respected in the animal welfare world internationally, we have a very important role in the World Organisation for Animal Health, and so Australia has an opportunity to comment on international standards there, as well as through other networks where we work with countries to raise their animal welfare profiles as well. We certainly don't deny that in the short term, this transition requires some adaptation and change from farmers and others in the supply chain. But we really do see in the economic reports support the fact that the long term future is actually quite bright, and we can see an opportunity for continued investment in Australia's farming and agricultural sector that can really be strengthened through an expanded boxed and chilled meat trade.
Brian: And we're discussing before that the trade has reduced significantly over the last couple of decades, already.
Suzie: It really has, I think it's about 10% of what it used to be back in the 90s, and there about, so we have really seen, if you look at the graphs, the drop off has been very significant. It is now, I believe, around 10% or just under of the Western Australia sheep trade. So it's a very, very low component. It's even less than that if you look at the entire Australian agricultural sector. So it's a very, very small component. It's worth less than $80 million a year, and so the opportunity is now to have a very clear end date to give clarity to those farmers, so that there isn't a long tail of uncertainty where farmers don't know where to invest and what the future model could look like. So by giving a very clear end date, what it allows for is that planning and also the transition package that has been provided by the government allows investment to ensure that transition happens to the best ability to give the best possible future and ensure animal welfare during the transition period as well.
Lynn: Brian on that, we've got a bit of a myth that gets spread around that we're providing food security that's imperative for the Middle East to receive, so with the sheep, with live export, by live exporting them in 2023-24 on average, we were providing 178 grams of sheep meat per person per year. Kuwait was a bit more than that. That's a bit of an outlier, but it's not tremendously much more. There was an article in one of the Australian magazines that said that Australians, on average, eat 145 grams of meat per day. So if you compare our daily intake to their yearly provision, we're really not ... it's a myth that we're providing food security to these people through the live export sector. Our meat export sector is much bigger and much better and from my experience on the ship, seeing a lot of the diseased animals that survive the voyage and walk off and go straight to a slaughterhouse, we're actually providing a much healthier meat through the chilled and frozen meat exports from Australia directly.
Brian: Well, it sounds like we're on course for a better future for sheep in Australia and for better health around the world really, as you're saying there, Lynn, so thanks for your time today, Suzie and Lynn, and to both of you for your crucial work in getting us to this point. It's great to hear this phase out is finally being implemented in a way that will address not only the welfare of sheep, but also support Australian farmers through the transition. And I hope we will remain on track to see an end to live export of sheep by 1st of May 2028. Thanks again for your time today.
Lynn: Thank you.
Suzie: Thanks, Brian.
Brian: We've been talking today with Dr Suzie Fowler, Chief Science Officer at RSPCA Australia, and vet and animal welfare advocate Dr Lynn Simpson, and thank you for listening. If you would like any more information on the live sheep export phase out, you can visit the RSPCA website at rspca.org.au. You can also subscribe to the podcast series at the website, or all the usual podcast suspects. I'm Brian Daly, and I look forward to your company next time on RSPCA Australia's Great and Small Talk.
