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arising from issues associated with the “MV Cormo Express”, an export vessel carrying
sheep to Saudi Arabia that spent 80 days on the vessel following rejection of the consignment by Saudi authorities.
Significant reforms were made to industry regulation following the Keniry Livestock Export Review, which led to government taking on full responsibility for managing the regulation of
the livestock export process. This included the development of the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock ASEL, which initially came into effect in July 2005. Since that time
there have been several revisions of ASEL and the current version 2.3 of ASEL was endorsed in April 2011.
Over the recent decade, there have been a variety of changes in the way livestock exports are conducted, driven by a combination of market forces changes in demand and supply of
livestock and regulatory requirements with associated changes in selection and management of animals.
9.4 Effect of month of year
Preliminary exploration of mortality estimates by month of year suggested that the pattern had changed over time, consistent with the general pattern of a reduction in mortality rate
per annum over time. A decision was made to summarise monthly mortality rates using three broad categories of time based on the year groupings presented in the previous section.
Figure 13: Mean monthly mortality rate deaths per 1,000 cattle-days arranged by three year- groups: 1995-2002, 2003-2009, 2010-2012. Bars represent 95 confidence intervals. Points for
each year group have been jittered slightly at each month, so that confidence intervals do not overlap.
0.05 0.1
0.15 0.2
0.25 0.3
0.35 0.4
0.45
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10
11 12
M o
rtal ity
rate deaths
p er
1 ,0
catt le
-d ays
Month 1995-2002
2003-2009 2010-2012
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Each of the three year group categories shows a similar general pattern with a rise in monthly mortality rates during the Australian Summer months and a nadir in the Winter.
There is also an overarching pattern due to the effect of year group. In the earliest year group 1995-2002, the Summer rise in monthly mortality rate was higher than for other year
groups. The lower monthly values through the Winter also remained higher than the monthly estimates for the later year groups.
Selected statistical comparisons were performed to further explore the effects of month of year within the different year-groups 1995-2002; 2003-2009; 2010-2012.
Within the 1995-2002 year-group, there was a significant reduction in mortality rate from March to April p=0.016. Between March and August there was no significant difference in
mortality rate. Then there was a progressive rise in mortality rate from August onwards. The change from August to November was significant p=0.001 and there was a further
significant rise from November to December p=0.003. There was then no difference in mortality rates between any of the months from December to March.
A similar pattern was evident in the 2003-2009 year-group, however it was less obvious. The peak mortality rate in March was followed by a significant fall to April p=0.014 and then a
plateau through the Winter with a nadir in July, followed by a progressive rise in the second half of the year. The rise from July to September was significant p=0.013 and then there
was no difference between months from September through to March.
Within the 2010-2012 year-group the mortality rates followed a similar pattern again, however the extremes had been further reduced. There was a peak mortality in January that
was followed by a progressive decline in monthly mortality rate. The reduction became statistically significant from March to April p=0.04 and then mortality rate remained low
through the Winter. The lowest monthly mortality was in June and there was then little rise until October.
The progressive month to month rise late in the year was small and not statistically significant. Comparing the low values in June or September to the peak in January produced
a statistically significant increase p0.05.
Comparisons were also performed between year-groups at each month. The most recent year-group 2010-2012 was significantly lower than 1995-2002 at all months, except
October p0.05.
The 2003-2009 year-group was significantly lower than the 1995-2002 group in January, February, April, July and December p0.05.
The 2010-2012 year-group was significantly lower than the 2003-2009 group in May, June, August, September and December p0.05.
In conclusion, there is a general seasonal pattern with a peak mortality for voyages occurring in Summer months that persists through until March. There is then a progressive decline to a
nadir in Winter, that is followed by a progressive rise through Spring and Summer to the annual peak.
While the pattern has remained pretty constant through the 20 year period covered by the dataset, there has been a general and progressive reduction in mortality rates over that
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period. The most prominent reduction from earlier time periods 1995-2002 to later periods is a reduction in Summer month peak mortality rates. The lowest mortality rates in every
month were achieved in the most recent year-group 2010-2012. The evidence is consistent with a progressive reduction in monthly mortality rates over time, with the biggest effect
appearing in those Summer months that had the highest mortality rates in the 1990’s.
9.5 Effect of destination region
