**1. Introduction**

Millions of animals are transported daily all over the world. The movement of livestock across the borders of Member States of the European Union is monitored using the Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES) and reported in the Activity Report [1]. For example, approximately 3 million head of cattle are transported for fattening annually. However, long distance animal transport is an animal welfare issue, because it is a stressfull event triggering often the onset of health problems [2]. With the aim of reducing transport stress and consequently the incidence of transport-related health and welfare issues, many studies have been published identifying risk factors for farm animals pre-, during and post-road transport [3]. Pre-journey risk factors include many factors, such as on-farm handling, rearing conditions, assembly of animals, classifying, weighing, repenning in a new environment, re-grouping, mixing with unfamiliar animals, fitness for transport and handling at loading [4,5]. Among risk factors during the journey are journey duration, withdrawal of feed and water, thermal and physical conditions inside the vehicle, overcrowding, absence of partitions, driving skills, noise, vibration, and road quality [6–8]. Post-journey risk factors include handling at unloading, duration of rest period, recovery practices, re-grouping, and mixing with unfamiliar animals [9–12].

One of the determining risk factors is journey duration [13,14]. Consequently, Council Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005, which regulates animal transport in Europe, includes special requirements for journeys exceeding 8 h. For instance, maximum journey duration is 29 h for ruminants and 24 h for horses and pigs. After this time animals must be unloaded for resting, watering and feeding for at least 24 h in locations approved by the competent authorities [15]. Such locations used to be called staging points in Council Regulation (EC) No. 1255/1997 and have now been renamed control posts (CPs) by Council Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005. Council Regulation (EC) No. 1255/1997 (Article 6) requires that official veterinarians (OVs) inspect the means of transport and accompanying documents, as well as evaluate the animals' fitness for transport before the animals leave the control post again. The facilities and managemen<sup>t</sup> at CPs have been identified as key factors in animal recovery, affecting both resting behaviour and biochemical parameters [10,11,15]. However, scientific literature regarding the effect of CPs on animal welfare during long distance road transports is still limited.

Surveys on farm animal transport have been performed to explore the epidemiological basis of transport-related health and welfare issues worldwide. For instance, the mortality due to road transport has been calculated for beef cattle in North America (0.01%) [16], fattening pigs in Europe (0.07%) [17], and bobby calves in Australia (0.64%) [13].Whilst death is a definitive welfare outcome, the variation in the above mentioned mortality is most likely related to the species or the type of animals being transported and their transport and handling conditions [18], or else to the journey duration [14]. The prevalence of transport-related health problems varied significantly even within the same species (e.g., in slaughter horses injury rate varied from 7% to 28% [19,20]). One reason for this large variation may be the use of different criteria to assess health problems. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no survey reporting animal transport welfare outcomes measured by OVs at a control post. Italy currently has 13 CPs, only one of which is in Southern Italy (Doc. SANCO/2677/99 Rev.241). Consequently, the aims of this study were to document animal transits through the Southern Italian control post from 2010 to 2015 and to report the corresponding mortality and prevalence of animals considered unfit for transport using the official reports filed in compliance with Article 6 of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1255/1997 and Annexes I and II of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005.

## **2. Materials and Methods**
