Every year millions of Australian cattle, sheep and goats are sent overseas — to countries where there are rarely any local laws to protect them from cruelty. Thousands of these animals don't survive the sea journey, and investigations have shown that those who do disembark alive can face appalling cruelty. Most Australian animals slaughtered overseas have their throats cut while they are fully conscious, leading to a painful and prolonged death. Even before stepping onto a live export ship, these often effectively 'wild' animals will have suffered through long overland journeys to get to a port, usually followed by confinement in a feedlot to 'acclimatise' to unfamiliar feed, and the stress of being loaded in their thousands onto a huge ship. Conditions on board live export ships are inherently stressful for the animals. Constant rolling motion, extremes of temperature, the risk of mechanical breakdown, injuries from hard concrete and metal decks, and journeys that often last weeks at sea all increase the risks for animals and contribute to unnecessary suffering. If animals transported within Australia died in the numbers that they do on live export ships, cruelty charges could be laid. But the live export industry simply accepts these deaths as part of their business model. Once Australian animals reach their overseas destination, they can be handled and slaughtered by workers who are often frightened, ill equipped and poorly trained. Much of the cruelty witnessed over the years in foreign abattoirs — whether in Indonesia, Jordan or Gaza — is the result of fearful workers unable to control large, untamed and stressed animals. Australian government regulations — which don't even require that animals exported live are stunned before slaughter — are utterly failing to protect animals from cruelty overseas, while policing the live export system is left to a charity. Again and again over the past decade, Animals Australia investigators have documented terrible abuse of Australian animals exported live — abuse that the government wouldn't even be aware of if it wasn’t for our evidence and legal complaints. Meanwhile, it seems to be 'business as usual' for companies implicated in live export breaches.