Impact of EU-regulation on pigs? welfare during transport
Each year 225 million pigs are transported within the European Union (EU) for slaughter, fattening and breeding. This results in poor animal welfare due to the fact that animals are exposed to several numbers of stress factors in the vehicle during loading, transit and unloading. Animal welfare can be defined as how well the animal attempts to cope with its environment and during transport there is often severe difficulty for the pigs to cope properly. There is a growing societal concern for animal welfare. This resulted in that the European Union enacted a law called the EU-regulation with certain directives of how to improve the welfare of the animals during transport. The literature review focuses on EU-regulation and pigs? welfare during transport. Dead on arrival, unfit for transport, dehydration, lameness, severe injury and exhaustion were used to evaluate welfare of pigs during transport. The incidences of these welfare indicators were higher in 2005/2006 and lower in 2009. Therefore, the impact of EU-regulation 1/2005 shows that the welfare of pigs has been improved, at least in some aspects. The biggest challenge in the future is for all the member states in the EU to comply to the Regulation as this is not a reality today. More progress can be done in the future and there is a need for the Regulation to improve in order to be totally satisfactory regarding the welfare of the pigs.