KEY POINTS:
Millions of animals are suffering unnecessarily at the hands of meat traders by enduring cruel, drawn-out journeys around the world to be slaughtered on arrival.
The evidence of their suffering has been revealed after a secret investigation by 10 major animal charities, including the RSPCA, Compassion in World Farming and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).
In shocking footage, animals including horses, pigs, sheep and chickens are seen being transported thousands of kilometres around the world, when they could as easily be carried as meat.
Thousands die en route from disease, heat exhaustion, hunger and stress. The others survive the intolerable conditions only to confront, immediately, the butcher's knife.
The video is the product of the Handle With Care coalition, which has united animal charities to campaign against the practice.
The coalition, which is lobbying for change in the nations concerned, has unveiled an international campaign in countries including Brazil, Australia, the United States, Spain and Italy.
Worldwide, more than a million live animals are transported every week, many over long distances.
The video reveals the horror of five particularly gruesome journeys. Australia, the world's largest exporter of live animals, sends more than four million live sheep every year to the Middle East. Shipped in cramped, poorly lit dens, the journey takes 32 days.
Three sheep are crammed per square metre in the ship's hold, causing many of the animals to die of suffocation before encountering the slaughterhouse weeks later.
Those sheep that do arrive are fattened before being killed in accordance with Halal butchery laws. Eighty per cent of Australia's abattoirs are Halal-certified, begging the question of why they could not be slaughtered in Australia and transported frozen.
Many live exports are undertaken to make the fraudulent claim that the animals are home-reared. In Spain, thousands of horses are illegally crammed into lorries for a sweltering 46-hour journey to Italy.
Canadian pigs are condemned to a 7200km journey by land and sea to Hawaii, so that, when slaughtered, their carcasses can be sold as "Island Produced Pork". For nine days, hundreds of pigs are crammed together in the dark, standing in their own excrement.
Compassion in World Farming's chief executive, Philip Lymbery, said: "The cruelty these animals endure is completely unacceptable in the 21st century. This trade is one in which millions of animals suffer cruel and unnecessary journeys each year."
Jo White of the International League for the Protection of Horses said: "Long-distance transport for slaughter is the biggest single abuse of horses in Europe, with around 100,000 involved in the trade."
Rules on the minimum standards of care for the transit of live animals are flouted regularly, with many in such cramped conditions that they have no room to lie down. In Europe alone, some six million animals are taken on long journeys of up to 70 hours, which often cause extensive suffering.
No investigation is usually conducted into a live export unless more than 2 per cent of these animals die in transit; those in the industry say 1 per cent will die on their journey - equivalent to about 40,000 sheep dying in inhumane conditions each year.
Campaigners say humans could also be at risk from the live shipping as diseases such as bird flu are spread more easily.
STOCK STORY
* More than a million live animals are transported every week around the world.
* These include horses, pigs and sheep.
* Australia is the world's largest exporter of live animals.
* Over four million live sheep are sent from Australia to the Middle East every year.
- INDEPENDENT
