Welfare outcomes for livestock transported on Northern Isles ferry routes

Executive summary

Background

Transportation of livestock in Scotland can involve significant challenges, due to dispersed islands and movements through difficult terrain on narrow roads. A particular concern is the movement of animals from the Northern Isles to the mainland for marketing involving sea freight journeys of between 9-15 hours. Although some journeys are for slaughter, most journeys are made in the autumn, particularly to deal with the need to provide livestock with adequate nutrition during winter months, when available forage, housing and supplementary feeds are limited in the Northern Isles. Sheep and cattle regularly leave Orkney and Shetland and travel by ferry to Aberdeen in significant numbers (approximately 25,000 cattle and 140,000 sheep per annum). This trade is an integral part of the agricultural sustainability of these island communities. To deal with the retained EU legislative requirements for livestock journey times, the animals are loaded onto specially designed two-tier cassettes, which allow for feed and water to be given to the animals, and effluent to be contained. The current system has been in operation for over 15 years and is considered by stakeholders to be a substantial improvement for animal welfare and operational efficiency over the previous system. Scottish Government has designated the time on board the ferry as ‘neutral’, which does not count towards maximum allowable journey times. There is, however, little objective scientific evidence to understand the animals’ experience of these types of journeys.

The project’s aims and objectives were as follows:

Aim: Provide objective evidence on the behavioural responses of cattle and sheep to ferry transport from the Northern Isles to Aberdeen.

Objectives:

1. Stakeholder engagement and scoping

2. Historical data and modelling

3. Welfare outcomes attributable to the sea crossing

Outcomes:

Objective 1: Stakeholders from across the agricultural sector attended a stakeholder meeting at the beginning and end of the project. One-to-one discussions with 17 stakeholders gained deeper understanding of the practice of moving animals from the Northern Isles. A predominantly held view was that the current system is excellent and a substantial improvement for animal welfare and operational efficiency over the system used before the advent of the cassettes (the construction of which began in 2007). We do not doubt the veracity of this statement, but note that it was not possible to compare the livestock cassette system with the previous system in this study. Even well-functioning systems can be refined further and below we make recommendations for further refinement to the cassette system.

Objective 2: Movement data for 2022 during which 26,948 cattle and 126,613 sheep moved to the mainland from the Northern Isles showed that the predominant final destination for cattle was Aberdeenshire and Angus and for sheep was Aberdeenshire or Cumbria. The longest journey, experienced by a minority of animals, was the movement of sheep to Wales.

A small quantity of data was collected by Official Veterinarians on their impressions of the tiredness, thirst and hunger of animals arriving from ferry journeys at local abattoirs. Data from too few animals inspected immediately upon arrival at the abattoir was available to make meaningful conclusions, but this would be a useful source of data should Scottish Government wish to continue collecting it going forward.

Aberdeen City Council animal health inspection reports were available for a period of over 7 years during which a total of 299,060 animals passed through the Aberdeen port lairage during days in which inspection visits were made and on which wave height data were available. The number of casualties (animals that died on the journey, needed to be euthanised or receive veterinary intervention on arrival) that could be attributed to the journey with reasonable confidence was very low (23 animals; 0.0008% of animals transported). No effect of sea conditions on the casualty rate was found. This dataset was not designed to detect minor deviations in health/welfare.

Objective 3: Six journeys (three focusing on store cattle from Orkney and three on store lambs from Shetland) were accompanied. These journeys sampled a representative range of sea conditions and vessel motion recorded during the period from August to December 2023. High ambient temperature combined with high relative humidity (>25°C and 85% RH) occurred in around half of the cattle cassettes studied. A temperature of 25°C approximates the upper limit of the thermoneutral zone of store cattle and is the EFSA recommended limit for cattle transport. Temperature and humidity were lower in sheep cassettes. Cattle spent a mean of 14 hours and 54 minutes between entering the cassette and the vessel docking in Aberdeen, whilst lambs spent a mean of 19 hours and 40 minutes, such that animals spent several hours housed in the cassettes waiting to board the vessel (3 hours for cattle and around 5 hours for lambs). In lamb cassettes, hay was available for a mean of 3 hours and 4 minutes from entry to the cassette, leaving a mean of 16 hours and 36 minutes between the hay being consumed and docking in Aberdeen. For cattle, 25 of the 35 studied cassette compartments had hay remaining when the vessel docked in Aberdeen. Of the remaining 10 compartments, the hay was consumed within 6 hours of entering the cassette. On average, around 95% of cattle and 39% of lambs were observed to be standing at any moment in time. Behaviour of cattle was similar in each of the three journeys except the warmest when, on average, 24% of the cattle were showing rapid breathing at each observation point (1 and 7% in the other journeys). Open-mouthed panting was not seen. Few sheep showed rapid breathing (2-6% depending on the journey) but double the number of animals stood during the roughest sailing compared to the other journeys. Drinkers were only visible in around 40% of video segments in cassettes containing cattle, but cattle were not seen to drink when the drinkers were visible and drinking was rarely seen in the sheep cassettes (median 0% of visible animals). Cassette location on the vessel did not affect animal behaviour for either species. Only one animal was observed to fall during the sailings and the rate of involuntary movements by the animals caused by vessel motion was low. Currently the vessel master uses their experience to integrate the sources of information on weather and sea state and reach a decision on whether to transport each class of livestock. The low occurrence of involuntary movements by the animals indicates that the decisions made regarding the likely motion of the vessel and the impact of this on the animals were appropriate. Observations of animals on arrival in Aberdeen were problematic. Most cattle and lambs did not lie down within the first hour after unloading, but this may reflect the novelty of the lairage environment rather than a lack of fatigue. It was noted that animal handling was performed calmly by experienced staff at the lairages in Orkney, Shetland and Aberdeen.

Recommendations

The available data confirm the stakeholders’ view that the system is efficient and no outcomes were recorded that would indicate a likely reduction in long-term animal welfare. Injuries observed were limited to lameness in lambs which was not significant enough to prevent the animals walking unaided at a normal walking speed. New injuries that could be confidently attributed to the journey were not found. As above, we noted that the animals were handled well at all three lairage facilities by experienced staff who moved the animals calmly. However, signs of heat stress during one cattle journey, the scarcity of lying behaviour in all three cattle journeys, the period without food in lambs and lack of rumination by both species suggest that short-term welfare is likely to be affected. Below are recommendations that would contribute to the continued refinement of the system and benefit short-term welfare.

1. A greater quantity of hay could be provided to sheep before loading to reduce the proportion of the journey spent without food.

2. This study only focussed on the two main classes of animals transported from the Northern Isles (store cattle and lambs). Specific effort should be made to assess the welfare of other animals transported in smaller numbers but that are potentially less robust (e.g. cull adult animals and young stock).

3. Cattle were not observed to drink from the nipple drinkers in the port lairage in Kirkwall and drinkers are not provided for sheep at the lairage in Lerwick. As animals may wait in the lairage for prolonged periods, especially if the ship arrives late (>12 hours for some lambs in one journey), consideration should be given to providing water or improving the attractiveness of drinkers in the lairages.

4. Specific quantification of water use in the cassettes is recommended as a follow-up study to estimate the volume of water consumed. As lack of water use will exacerbate heat stress, quantifying water use by cattle would be particularly useful.

5. Methods to allow on-going monitoring and recording of ambient temperature within a sample of cassettes would provide valuable information to inform refinement of practices according to potential heat load. The current data suggests that effort to reduce heat load during summer cattle journeys would be valuable. For example, this may include reducing stocking density (with appropriate consideration given to maintaining postural stability), improving ventilation and (if water use is subsequently shown to be low) encouraging water consumption.

6. Within the course of a single journey, the wave and swell height, direction and period can fluctuate greatly (e.g. swell can move from the north and south and vary in height from 0.1 to 3.0m and period from 5 to 15 seconds in the course of a single journey; significant wave parameters may vary substantially also). Currently the vessel master uses their experience to amalgamate these sources of information and judge whether conditions are appropriate for the safe travel of animals. If a formalised rule-based approach was adopted (e.g. based on a maximum allowable wind speed or wave height) we note that this would need to be underpinned by studying a very large number of journeys (likely >100) to quantify how the duration and magnitude of each individual variable combines to affect animal welfare. The data indicate that vessel masters made appropriate decisions with respect to vessel motion on the accompanied journeys.