Abstract

The extensive livestock production industries are vital to the national economy of Australia. Continuing improvements to extensively-raised livestock welfare is desirable, necessary and in some situations mandatory, if the social license for animal sourced food and fiber production is to continue sustainably. However, meeting increasingly high welfare standards is challenging. The changing climate in this millennium, has seen the occurrence of two of the most severe drought periods on record in Australia, resulting in complex welfare issues arising from unforeseen disease, trade and environmental catastrophes. The onset of the first drought coincided with an uncontrolled epidemic of ovine paratuberculosis. It ended just prior to a temporary ban on live export of tropical cattle to Indonesia that induced a major market failure and led to severe morbidity and mortality on some beef properties. The second drought period progressed in severity and culminated in the most extreme bushfires recorded, causing unprecedented levels of mortality, morbidity and suffering in farmed animals and wildlife. Temperature extremes have also caused periodic heat-associated or cold-induced hyopthermia losses, requiring increased vigilance and careful management to reduce both temperature-induced stress during transport and the high ovine peri-parturient losses traditionally observed in extensive sheep farming. Several issues remain controversial, including surgical mulesing of wool sheep to manage flystrike, and the continuing live export trade of sheep and cattle. However, in reviewing the increasingly complex welfare challenges for the extensive livestock population industries that are export trade dependent and remain vulnerable to welfare activism, it appears progress has been made. These include development of prescribed livestock welfare Standards and Guidelines and the introduction of the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System (ESCAS) to address export concerns. Further, the sheep mulesing crisis led to improved producer welfare attitudes and practices, including pain management during aversive husbandry procedures that is now occurring globally. Finally, innovations in animal welfare surveillance and assessment, are additional encouraging signs that suggest improving change management of extensive farm animal welfare is occurring that provides lessons well-beyond Australian shores.

Highlights

  • Livestock production accounts for ∼40% of agricultural output in developed countries

  • Animal welfare issues facing the extensive southern Australian sheep and beef cattle industries have some similarities to those faced by extensive livestock production industries in many other countries, management of external parasitism from myiasis and lice in wool sheep flocks and the impacts of prolonged drought have proven to be extremely challenging

  • Whilst the extensive tropical Australian beef cattle industry in northern Australia is characterized by climatic extremes and external parasitism from cattle tick and buffalo fly, the large property sizes and distances requiring prolonged transport, plus the necessary low management inputs, ensure the industry still has significant challenges in meeting increasing standards for animal welfare

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Livestock production accounts for ∼40% of agricultural output in developed countries. This variation in acceptable practices reflects the vast differences in husbandry conditions between different agricultural regions, in the extensive rangelands and tropical northern Australia where livestock farming is more often described as animal “harvesting.” Here, the climatic extremes, large areas and distances within and between holdings (stations or farms) and low management inputs are necessary, ensuring that the extensive tropical cattle industry continues to face significant challenges to assure high standards of animal welfare [11] It is the live export industry (LEI), where more than 2.7 million animals are shipped from Australian ports to nearly 20 countries around the globe annually, that faces the most scrutiny [28], with extensive research indicating that issues posed before, during and after live export results in the cumulative effects of combined stresses on the welfare of the animals [29]. The review identified 38 (sector 1), 35 (sector 2), and 26 (sector 3) measures currently being collected plus 20, 25, and 28 measures that are relevant to each LEI sector (sectors 1, 2, 3, respectively), and that could be developed and integrated into a future benchmarking system [39] should the LEI’s continue, presumably as a transition industry until importing countries agree that processed meat is a preferred product to live animals

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