The animal trade

210 Pages·2015·1.986 MB·English

by  Phillips, Clive J. C

The Animal Trade
‘If the animal kingdom is doomed I don’t want to be responsible.’
Spike Milligan (Farnes, 2003)
The Animal Trade
Clive J.C. Phillips
Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics,
School of Veterinary Science,
University of Queensland, Australia
E-mail: [email protected]
CABI is a trading name of CAB International
CABI CABI
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Website: www.cabi.org
© C.J.C. Phillips 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any form or by any means, electronically, mechanically, by photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library, London, UK.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Phillips, Clive J.C.
The animal trade / Clive J.C. Phillips.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-78064-313-7 (alk. paper)
1. Animal industry. 2. Pet industry. 3. Wild animal collecting. I. Title.
HD9410.5.P495 2015
381¢.416--dc23
2015020183
ISBN-13: 978 1 78064 313 7
Commissioning editor: Caroline Makepeace
Assistant editor: Alexandra Lainsbury
Production editor: Tracy Head
Typeset by SPi, Pondicherry, India.
Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY.
Contents
Preface vi
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction ix
1 The History of Animal Trade 1
2 Trade Policies for Animal Products 28
3 Trade Wars, Sanctions and Discrimination 36
4 Trade in Meat 50
5 Trade in Some Key Animal Products: Dairy, Wool and Fur 65
6 Trade in Live Farm Animals 73
7 Disease Transmission and Biodiversity Loss
Through the Trade in Farm Animals 113
8 Trade in Horses, Cats and Dogs 124
9 Trade in Wildlife and Exotic Species 131
10 The Future of Animal Trade 149
References 169
Index 183
v
Preface
Animals have been traded between countries for thousands of years, and this has
made a significant contribution to transferring resources from places where ani-
mals can be successfully grown to those with greatest demand, as well as to devel-
oping trade and communication networks between nations. The animal trade has
also assisted in colonization of new lands, created tension over health and quality
issues between trading partners, and has been used politically when trade bar-
riers and sanctions are applied. Despite the latter, the trade in animals for meat
has grown rapidly in recent years, due mainly to relaxation of trade barriers, in-
creasing demand for food animals, in Asia in particular, and faster and cheaper
transport opportunities. This has allowed the rapid growth of multinational com-
panies using intensive animal production techniques, particularly in developing
countries such as Brazil and Thailand. Demand is directed especially towards af-
fordable meat products that are produced with minimal land, labour and feed re-
source utilization, which has favoured chicken meat and pork over beef and sheep
meat. The intensive nature of the production systems used, with high stocking
densities of animals in cages and pens, short lifespans for the animals and limited
opportunity for them to perform natural behaviour, means that there are inherent
ethical problems, especially concerning the welfare of the animals but also pol-
lution and the use of feed that could otherwise support human life directly. The
growth of such systems implies that an increasing proportion of animal produc-
tion systems used worldwide have ethical concerns. The concerns are partially
mitigated by some regions, most notably the European Union (EU), having agree-
ments with overseas producers relating to animal welfare standards.
The growing intensity of farm animal production for international trade is
reducing the biodiversity of the animals used, and hence the gene pool that is
available to cope with problems like disease and climate change. The trade in live
animals is increasing particularly rapidly, due mainly to better transport opportun-
ities and a polarization of animal production systems in specified regions, which
may be distant from the market for the animals. There are more animals being
transported and they are travelling further, with poor welfare arising from high
stocking densities, limited opportunity to perform natural behaviour and stress
from poor handling and movement of the vessel or vehicle. Growth in demand
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Preface vii
for live animals for slaughter has grown particularly fast in Asia, which is supplied
by importing animals from neighbouring regions and by increased production
internally. The trade in live animals also brings risks of disease transmission, es-
pecially infectious diseases like foot and mouth disease. The World Organisation
for Animal Health (OIE) attempts to control such diseases and reduce their spread
with a vigorous research and extension programme. Another growth area has
been the trade in exotic animals, which are transported long distances to be sold
as pets, often illegally, during which time they will sometimes experience severe
stress from the unfamiliar thermal environment, noise and severe restriction of
movement.
The growth of the animal trade worldwide therefore brings serious concerns
for the welfare and ethical treatment of animals, with additional risks created by
disease transmission and loss of biodiversity. This book is an attempt to identify
the concerns, as well as posing solutions to the problems we will inevitably face in
the future.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Bidda Jones of RSPCA Australia for information on live export
disasters, Eduardo Santurtun for Fig. 6.4, Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen.
Coll. no. TM-60014403, the Netherlands, for permission to reproduce Fig. 6.5,
World Animal Protection for permission to reproduce Fig. 6.6, The Conversation
for permission to reproduce segments of articles published in this online journal
and finally my wife, Alison, for proof-reading the Introduction and supporting my
interest in this topic.
viii
Introduction
Just as animals migrate to find new food sources, so humans have travelled to
exchange goods, or trade, for millennia. That drive to explore has led us to a
position in which we dominate ecosystems in most of the habitable parts of the
globe. Trade involves sharing goods, offering them in return for other products
or money. One of the fundamentals of trade is to increase the welfare of traders
by producing goods in regions suited to the purpose so that they can be sent to
regions where suitable conditions for production are not available. Such mutual
benefit should help to secure peace between traders, but it may also cause discon-
tent if there are attempts to exploit the importers or consumers in the importing
nation, or if prices for the products are undermined in the recipient country. In
international trade the threat of exploitation was very real historically because
people have little tribal allegiance to those far distant from them. Early colonizers
utilized this extensively; in the East Indies, China and many other parts of the
globe, Western Europeans in particular used their military superiority to subject
people in other parts of the globe to enforced trading for their own benefit.
Trade often ignores the externalities of production – the cost of pollution of
the environment, for example. In addition the true costs of the commodities used
to produce livestock products may not be taken into account. The water require-
ments may be from long-term aquifers that are not replenished and the nitrogen
used as fertilizer is based on fossil fuels.
The first scientific book I ever read, Animal Travellers, described the remark-
able feats that wild animals perform in their migrations around the globe (Vérité,
1961), and the book helped me to develop a keen respect for, and interest in, the
natural world. Little did I know that these beautiful natural movements of ani-
mals would over the next 50 years become overshadowed by a massive growth
in the movement of animals, dead and alive, for human consumption. Much of
this expansion has come about since the time that Animal Travellers was written:
the number of food animals exported annually has increased massively, pigs from
2.6 to 36.5 million, sheep from 6.5 to 15.2 million, cattle from 4.9 to 10.4 million
and chickens from 0.8 to 1.4 million (FAOSTAT, 2014). In 2011, live agricultural
animals worth US$19.9 billion were exported worldwide, more than double the
value of animals exported 10 years previously (FAOSTAT, 2013). In the face of
ix