Transport Of Live Animals Research Articles

Tracing the origins of rescued chimpanzees reveals widespread chimpanzee hunting in Cameroon

BackgroundWhile wild chimpanzees are experiencing drastic population declines, their numbers at African rescue and rehabilitation projects are growing rapidly. Chimpanzees follow complex routes to these refuges; and their geographic origins are often unclear. Identifying areas where hunting occurs can help law enforcement authorities focus scarce resources for wildlife protection planning. Efficiently focusing these resources is particularly important in Cameroon because this country is a key transportation waypoint for international wildlife crime syndicates. Furthermore, Cameroon is home to two chimpanzee subspecies, which makes ascertaining the origins of these chimpanzees important for reintroduction planning and for scientific investigations involving these chimpanzees.ResultsWe estimated geographic origins of 46 chimpanzees from the Limbe Wildlife Centre (LWC) in Cameroon. Using Bayesian approximation methods, we determined their origins using mtDNA sequences and microsatellite (STRP) genotypes compared to a spatial map of georeferenced chimpanzee samples from 10 locations spanning Cameroon and Nigeria. The LWC chimpanzees come from multiple regions of Cameroon or forested areas straddling the Cameroon-Nigeria border. The LWC chimpanzees were partitioned further as originating from one of three biogeographically important zones occurring in Cameroon, but we were unable to refine these origin estimates to more specific areas within these three zones.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that chimpanzee hunting is widespread across Cameroon. Live animal smuggling appears to occur locally within Cameroon, despite the existence of local wildlife cartels that operate internationally. This pattern varies from the illegal wildlife trade patterns observed in other commercially valuable species, such as elephants, where specific populations are targeted for exploitation. A broader sample of rescued chimpanzees compared against a more comprehensive grid of georeferenced samples may reveal 'hotspots' of chimpanzee hunting and live animal transport routes in Cameroon. These results illustrate also that clarifying the origins of refuge chimpanzees is an important tool for designing reintroduction programs. Finally, chimpanzees at refuges are frequently used in scientific investigations, such as studies investigating the history of zoonotic diseases. Our results provide important new information for interpreting these studies within a precise geographical framework.

Chapter 3 - Strategies and Considerations for Distributing and Recovering Mouse Lines

As more and more genetically modified mouse lines are being generated, it becomes increasingly common to share animal models among different research institutions. Live mice are routinely transferred between animal facilities. Due to various issues concerning animal welfare, intellectual property rights, colony health status and biohazard, significant paperwork and coordination are required before any animal travel can take place. Shipping fresh or frozen preimplantation embryos, gametes, or reproductive organs can bypass some of the issues associated with live animal transfer, but it requires the receiving facilities to be able to perform delicate and sometimes intricate procedures such as embryo transfer, in vitro fertilization (IVF), or ovary transplantation. Here, we summarize the general requirements for live animal transport and review some of the assisted reproductive technologies (ART) that can be applied to shipping and reviving mouse lines. Intended users of these methods should consult their institution's responsible official to find out whether each specific method is legal or appropriate in their own animal facilities.

Is the zona pellucida an efficient barrier to viral infection?

Although the transfer of embryos is much less likely to result in disease transmission than the transport of live animals, the sanitary risks associated with embryo transfer continue to be the subject of both scientific investigations and adaptations of national and international legislation. Therefore, the implications are important for veterinary practitioners and livestock breeders. In vivo-derived and in vitro-produced embryos are widely used in cattle and embryos from other species, such as sheep, goats, pigs and horses, are also currently being transferred in fairly significant numbers. Bearing in mind the wide variety of embryos of different species and the correspondingly large number of viruses that are of concern, it is expedient at this time to look again at the importance of the zona pellucida (ZP) as a barrier against viruses and at the susceptibility or otherwise of embryonic cells to viral infection if ever they are exposed. For embryos with an intact ZP, viral infection of the embryo is unlikely to occur. However, the virus may stick to the ZP and, in this case, International Embryo Transfer Society (IETS) washing procedures in combination with trypsin treatment are mandatory. A caveat is the fact that currently more and more types of embryos are becoming available for transfer and scientific data cannot be extrapolated from one species to another. These topics are discussed in the present review.

Fertilization of C57BL/6 mouse sperm collected from cauda epididymides after preservation or transportation at 4 °C using laser-microdissected oocytes

The C57BL/6 mouse is commonly used to produce transgenic and knockout strains for biomedical research. However, the motility and fertility of its sperm decrease markedly with freezing. Short-term preservation of sperm without freezing can avoid this. Furthermore, such samples can be transported safety without the special skills or equipment needed for the transportation of live animals or frozen products. We evaluated the motility and fertility of sperm collected from cauda epididymides after preservation or transportation at 4 °C. Oocytes with the zona pellucida subjected to laser-microdissection were used to assist fertilization in vitro. Although the motility of sperm gradually decreased with storage ( P < 0.05), no disruption of the sperm plasma membrane was seen. The proportion of zona-intact oocytes fertilized with sperm preserved for 0, 24, 48 and 72 h were 70, 14, 5 and 1%, respectively. On the other hand, 45, 20 and 14% of laser-microdissected oocytes were fertilized by sperm preserved for 24, 48 and 72 h, respectively ( P < 0.05). The fertility of sperm collected from cauda epididymides of two transgenic strains after transportation at 4 °C were also significantly increased using laser-microdissected oocytes rather than zona-intact oocytes (57 and 68% vs. 5%, P < 0.05). Efficient production of offspring from sperm preserved or transported at 4 °C was achieved using laser-microdissected oocytes. Thus the fertility of sperm preserved or transported at 4 °C could be maintained, although motility gradually decreased with storage. Laser-microdissected oocytes will contribute to the efficient production of embryos and offspring using such preserved sperm samples.

The Long Haul: Risks Associated With Livestock Transport

301 THE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION (FAO) of the United Nations describes live animal transport as “ideally suited for spreading disease,” given that animals may originate from different herds or flocks and are “confined together for long periods in a poorly ventilated stressful environment.”1 Given the associated “serious animal and public health problems,” the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe has called for the replacement of the longdistance transportation of live animals for slaughter as much as possible to a “carcass-only trade.”2 In the United States, more than 50 million live cattle, sheep, and pigs3 and an unknown number of the more than 9 billion chickens, turkeys, and other birds raised for food4 are annually traded across state lines. Before they are slaughtered, U.S. livestock may travel an average of 1,000 miles.5 These factors and activities may have undesirable animal and public health implications.

A tabu search approach for the livestock collection problem

We present a problem dealing with transportation of live animals to slaughterhouses. The problem is taken from the Norwegian meat industry, and may be viewed as a vehicle routing problem extended with inventory constraints to ensure a smooth production flow at the slaughterhouse. In addition, several constraints to ensure animal welfare have to be met. These include duration limits for how long animals can stay on the vehicle as well as rules for mixing different animal categories. In this paper, we show that this real-world problem can be solved heuristically, even if it is large both in size and complexity. A tabu search based solution method for the problem is presented, and results from computational testing are given, including comparisons with manual solutions from today's planning system.

Optimization model for a livestock collection problem

PurposeThe value chain of the Norwegian meat production industry has recently been through major structural changes resulting in increased flows and transportation needs at all levels. The purpose of this paper is to present results of the initial stage of a five‐year research project between the Norwegian Meat Research Centre, Norwegian meat companies and Molde University College. The main goal of the project is to develop a decision support system for the transport of live animals to a slaughterhouse to reduce transportation costs while maintaining high level of livestock welfare and meat quality, as these are three main factors for the profitability of both farmers and industry.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a mixed integer programming model that combines vehicle routing and inventory control. We introduce the possibility for multiple routes for a given vehicle on a given day in a multiple‐period planning perspective. Arrival times of the loaded vehicles to the slaughterhouse are controlled by production (slaughter) rate and inventory level at the abattoirs so that the supply of animals for slaughter is steady and production breaks are avoided. Livestock welfare is secured by the route duration constraints.FindingsThe model has been formulated and tested on small data sets. The major future challenge is to solve real‐life problems from the involved companies.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation is the present inability to solve large cases.Originality/valueThe model combining transportation and inventory control in a setting of animal welfare constraints is original.

Patterns of spread and persistence of foot-and-mouth disease types A, O and Asia-1 in Turkey: a meta-population approach

Despite significant control efforts, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) persists in Turkey, and new strains of serotypes A, O and Asia-1 are periodically reported to enter the country from the east. The status of FMD in Turkey is important regionally because the country forms a natural bridge between Asia where the disease is endemic, and Europe which has disease-free status. This study analysed spatial and temporal patterns of FMD occurrence in Turkey to explore factors associated with the disease's persistence and spread. Annual records of FMD distribution in Turkish provinces throughout 1990-2002, grouped by serotype (O, A and Asia 1), were analysed using geostatistical techniques to explore their spatial and temporal patterns. A meta-population model was used to test how disease status, expressed in terms of presence/absence, extinction, and colonization, and measured at the province level throughout the periods 1990-1996 and 1997 2002, could be predicted using province-level data on: ruminant livestock numbers; meat production-demand discrepancy (as a surrogate measure of animal and animal products marketing, i.e. long-distance contagion through the traffic of mainly live animals to urban centres); and the disease prevalence distribution as recorded for the previous year. A drastic overall reduction in FMD occurrence was observed from the period 1990-1996 to 1997-2002 when the disease was shown to retract into persistence islands. FMD occurrence was associated with host abundance, short distance contagion from adjacent provinces, and meat production-demand discrepancies. With FMD retracting into identified provinces, a shift in predictors of FMD occurrence was observed with a lower contribution of short-distance contagion, and a relatively higher association with meat production-demand discrepancies leading to live animal transport over long distances, and hence presenting opportunities for identifying critical-control points. The pattern of persistence differed according to serotype groups and is discussed in relation to their differential affinity to cattle and small ruminant hosts.

Scheduling Transportation of Live Animals to Avoid the Spread of Diseases

In the classical vehicle-routing problem (VRP) the objective is to service some geographically scattered customers with a given number of vehicles at the minimal cost. In the present paper, we consider a variant of the VRP where the vehicles should deliver some goods between groups of customers. The customers have an associated time window, a precedence number, and a quantity. Each vehicle should visit the customers within their time windows, in nondecreasing order of precedence respecting the capacity of the vehicle. The problem will be denoted the pickup-and-delivery problem with time windows and precedence constraints (PDPTWP). The PDPTWP has applications in the transportation of live animals where veterinary rules demand that the livestocks are visited in a given sequence in order not to spread specific diseases. We propose a tighter formulation of the PDPTWP based on Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition. The formulation splits the problem into a master problem, which is a kind of set-covering problem, and a subproblem that generates legal routes for a single vehicle. The LP-relaxation of the decomposed problem is solved through delayed column generation. Computational experiments show that the obtained bounds are less than 0.24% from optimum for the considered problems. As solving the pricing problems takes up the majority of the solution time, a reformulation of the problem is proposed that makes use of the precedence constraints. By merging customers having the same precedence number into “super nodes,” the pricing problem may be reformulated as a shortest-path problem defined on an acyclic layered graph. This makes it possible to solve the pricing problem in pseudopolynomial time through dynamic programming. The paper concludes with a comprehensive computational study involving real-life instances from the transportation of live pigs. It is demonstrated that instances with up to 580 nodes can be solved to optimality.

Sheep research and development in the United Kingdom — the whole picture

Current scientific research on aspects of the sheep industry in the United Kingdom ranges from conception to consumption, from the transportation of live animals and carcasses to transgenics. In 1999, over 150 studies were conducted on sheep-specific subjects in 49 separate research institutes with funding provided by 37 different bodies ranging from Government agencies to charitable and private sources. The major funders of agricultural research in the UK contributed more than £21 million towards these studies. In many cases in-kind contributions are made by breed societies and similar organisations. EU funding is actively sought, and indeed research is carried out in Universities across Europe, as well as in the Southern Hemisphere and the Americas. The diversity of sources of financial support encourages joint funding, as in LINK funding, a Government-sponsored scheme that seeks to bring together and link companies and research-based organisations. Each project requires the collaboration of at least one company and at least one research organisation, and Government Departments and Research Councils provide up to half of the total project cost. A major constituent of research and development in the UK is Technology Interaction (TI), so-called in recognition for the need for two-way communication (or dialogue) between end-users and researchers to ensure that studies are pertinent to current concerns and conducted on industry-relevant subjects. The involvement of end-users in all aspects of the research processes has been found to promote efficient and effective communication at all stages, resulting in greater uptake of end-products and innovations. TI has shown the need for meaningful dialogue between the promoters and adopters of innovation if new technologies are to be accepted and implemented. Increasingly it has been noticed that a technology pull is required from the farmers and processors, rather than a technology push by researchers. The “pull” is supplied by having two factors likely to facilitate the uptake by the average farmer — (1) obvious economic benefits and (2) ease of adoption.

The history and development of European and North American transport regulations and international trade issues

All animals farmed for meat travel at least once in their lifetimes. The transportation of live animals of all types, especially meat species, has become a vast and essential industry. It is the most visible aspect to the public at large of any livestock farming operation. Various governments have introduced successive layers and detail of legislation to control the welfare of animals while they are in transit, with varying degrees of success. The issue is now global. Increasingly affluent consumers are becoming interested in how their meat was handled before slaughter, whether the source is their own home market or some distant country of origin. More legislation will undoubtedly develop separately within different countries. The European Union has tried to impose standardized legislation throughout their present 15 member states with varying degrees of success. The industry recognizes the need for legislation provided that it is practical, workable, and evenly policed. Success will depend on legislation based on good science. This paper urges that science precede the legislation, rather than the other way around.

Transport from farm to slaughter

AbstractLive animal transport has a long history, dating back to biblical times. Today, the national and international transport of live animal is governed principally by a number of European Union Directives. In the UK these have been distilled into the welfare of Animals (Transport) Order 1997. This is primarily the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food but in practice the day-to-day administration of the regulations is devolved to local authorities. It is feared that this may lead to regional differences in interpretation. The situation is made more complex by the addition of further layers of bureaucracy from, for example, the Road Haulage Association, supermarkets and the multiplicity of quality assurance schemes. The responsibility for the lawful transport of live animals from farm to market or abattoir lies with the supplier who, under recent legislation, must satisfy himself or herself that the carrier is competent to transport the particular class of livestock. Similarly, the insurance of the animals during transit is the supplier's responsibility. The multiplicity of rules and regulations governing stocking densities, journey times, lairage, the cleaning and disinfection of vehicles and vehicle construction standards is resulting in many carriers deciding not to continue in the business of live animal transport.

Transport of live animals by air

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AATA Manual for the Transportation of Live Animals by Road Edited by T C Harris (1996). Animal Transport Association: Redhill. 90 pp. Paperback. Obtainable from the publishers, PO Box 251, Redhill, Surrey RH1 5FU, UK (ISBN 0 9528861 0 8). Price £45.00.

AATA Manual for the Transportation of Live Animals by Road Edited by T C Harris (1996). Animal Transport Association: Redhill. 90 pp. Paperback. Obtainable from the publishers, PO Box 251, Redhill, Surrey RH1 5FU, UK (ISBN 0 9528861 0 8). Price £45.00. - Volume 6 Issue 3

The incidence and level of Listeria monocytogenes contamination of food sources at primary production and initial processing.

Listeria monocytogenes was isolated in low numbers from a variety of environmental samples associated with the primary production of food, including vegetation, faeces and meat. The organism was rarely detected on growing grass and vegetables prior to processing. The excretion of L. monocytogenes by farm animals was linked to their diet, with animals fed entirely on hay or manufactured diets not excreting detectable levels of Listeria (i.e. absence in 25 g). However, animals fed on silage, which is frequently contaminated with L. monocytogenes, commonly excreted the organism. Transport of live animals over long distances (> 100 km) significantly increased the level of excretion of Listeria, but the contamination of carcasses of sheep and cattle was not high. Pigs and poultry faeces were free of Listeria prior to slaughter and pig carcasses were not found to have Listeria present. Frozen and chilled chicken did show detectable levels reflecting the greater potential for contamination during poultry processing. Samples of minced beef were tested and 21 of 23 samples were positive for L. monocytogenes, demonstrating that processing significantly increases the level of contamination compared to whole carcasses. Multilocus enzyme electrophoresis of a representative selection of the isolates showed that there was a wide range of electrophoretic types present in the primary production environment, relatively few of which have been linked to cases of human listeriosis. However, these types do arise on farms and occasional contamination of food raw material by potentially virulent strains may be sufficient to allow adaptable strains to become established in the processing environment and thus be responsible for more widespread contamination of the food available to the consumer.

Transport of live animals for slaughter

Transport of live animals for slaughter

Transport of live animals

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Management stress in reindeer

The general mechanism and biological effects of stress are dealt with. Investigations performed on semidomesticated reindeer concerning the stress response under different herding and management conditions are presented and discussed. The findings indicate that: Reindeer are susceptible to management stress and that their degree of tameness plays an important role in the development of stress lesions such as muscular and myocardial degeneration and abomasal haemorrhages, etc. The animals are not favoured by rests between events of stress exposure as the effects produced tend to be cumulative. Depletion of muscular glycogen stores, increased catabolism of muscular protein, muscular degeneration and increased blood-urea levels can not be excluded as a cause of an altered and bad taste of the meat, i.e. a bad meat quality. Thus prolonged and repeated manual handling and transportation of live animals should be avoided. The use of helicopters or other motor vehicles must be correlated to the tameness of the animals and to environmental conditions. Stress due to incorrect management methods may, by means of stress induced lesions, severly affect the productivity of reindeer.

The use of support energy in the meat processing industry

AbstractA study of the consumption of support energy in the meat industry in Scotland involved both large meat factories and “high street” butchers. The energy cost of transport of live animals from farms to abattoirs was 0.5 × 109 J/ton deboned meat for both pigs and cattle. Factory slaughtering, butchery and processing costs were 60 × 109 J/ton deboned meat for pigs and 41 × 109 J/ton for cattle. When on‐farm costs are included the support energy subsidy/ton meat was similar for both species at 110 × 109 J/ton deboned meat. The energy subsidy incurred in meat factories/ton deboned meat varied with the extent of processing, from 27 × 109 J/ton for jointed pork to 86 × 109 J for beef pies containing 34% meat. The imparting of convenience to food was achieved by expending additional labour and support energy in the ratio 4 × 109 J/man hour. Separate calculations showed that maintenance of hygiene and disposal of effluent accounted for over half the total energy cost of factory operations.

Giraffe Weight Estimation Using Dissected Leg Weight and Body Measurements

Giraffe Weight Estimation Using Dissected Leg Weight and Body Measurements