Live export

Live export is the commercial transport of livestock across national borders. The trade involves a number of countries with the Australian live export industry being one of the largest exporters in the global trade. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, exports of live sheep rose 21.4% and live calves increased 9.7% between March 2017 and March 2018. During 2017 alone, Australia exported 2.85 million living animals in shipping containers and airplanes. The expansion of the trade has been supported by the introduction of purpose-built ships which carry large numbers of animals. The amount of livestock exported from the European Union grew to nearly 586m kilograms between 2014 and 2017, a 62.5% increase during the time period.

This article is about cross-border transportation of livestock. For the transportation of livestock in general, see Livestock transportation. For transportation of non-livestock animals, see Transportation of animals.

The rising global demand for meat has resulted in the quadrupling of the export of live farm animals in the last half century, with two billion being exported in 2017, up from one billion in 2007. Roughly five million animals are in transit every day.

There has been strong criticism of the industry on animal rights grounds by animal rights organizations and the media. New Zealand has effectively phased out live exports for slaughter purposes since 2007 due to concerns about animals.

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