Today is Ban Live Exports International Awareness Day. Now in its sixth year, having started after 13,000 sheep died after suffering a prolonged journey from Romania which finally ended in Somalia on 14 June 2015, it comes a week after the UK government introduced the Kept Animals Bill to Parliament, the second piece of animal welfare legislation introduced this year. One of the changes the Bill proposes is an end to live exports for slaughter and fattening.

While the Bill could save many cows (including calves), sheep, goats, and pigs from horrendous journeys, it does not cover those sent abroad for breeding purposes, nor does it include poultry. According to a 2019 parliamentary research briefing, 42,515 cattle, 10,615 pigs, 483,859 sheep, and 1,198 goats were exported from the UK to Europe in 2016. The Bill also covers horses and other equidae like donkeys, but the majority of the 16,931 exported in 2018 were not destined for slaughter or fattening. The numbers of sheep and goats used for breeding is very small, but 16 per cent of pigs and 15 per cent of cattle were exported for breeding purposes. Even taken altogether, these numbers are far exceeded by how many baby birds are shipped from the UK, mainly for breeding: about 25 million chicks, baby turkeys and ducklings in 2018 alone. Some of them are sent as far away as Malaysia and Bangladesh.

Unsurprisingly, the animal agriculture industry has raised ‘concerns’ about the proposed ban. The Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) said that it could “cut off an essential lifeline” for sheep farmers, while the chairman of Ruminant Health & Welfare said that it would have “far-reaching consequences” which the government should plan for, such as “building regional abattoir capacity.” Perhaps the most outrageous claim from the meat lobby came from the National Farmers Union (NFU) at the close of the eight-week government consultation on the live export ban in February, as it claimed that the ban would significantly impact the livestock and poultry sectors but would fail to deliver meaningful welfare improvements.

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While the NFU may think it’s acceptable for animals - now formally recognised as sentient beings by the UK government - to suffer from overcrowding, heat stress, disease outbreaks, exhaustion, dehydration, and standing in their own waste for hours on end, anyone with a genuine concern for animal welfare would not. Several recent live export disasters also show how much risk is involved in shipping animals across seas.

Between December 2020 and March 2021, nearly 3,000 young bulls, originally bound for Turkey, were stranded at sea after being exported by Spain and refused entry to multiple countries due to fears that they had bluetongue disease. Many of the bulls died on the ship in hellish conditions while the rest were killed once they finally returned to a port in Spain. Earlier this year, a cargo ship blocking the Suez Canal blocked nearly 400 ships from passing through the busy trade route. At least 14 of those ships were designed to carry livestock and probably had hundreds of thousands of animals on board. Many were sheep being transported from Romania to Saudi Arabia and likely ran out of food before the situation was resolved. But it isn’t just external events delaying ships that cause animals to suffer on board; livestock ships frequently capsize, run aground, sink or catch fire and are twice as likely to be lost at sea as other cargo ships.

Even with a ban on live exports of some animals, the UK will continue to import live animals from other countries. For instance, data from Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (ADHB) shows that the UK imported 564,194 live pigs in 2018. There is clearly a contradiction in banning live exports yet allowing live animals to keep being imported into the country, enabling the UK government to tout its higher welfare standards while allowing other countries to continue this cruel practice.

Compassion in World Farming, which has been campaigning for an end to live exports for years, has a digital global action today to help raise awareness about live exports around the world. To join in, see their dedicated campaign page Stop Live Transport. 

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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