**1. Introduction**

## *1.1. Context of the Study*

Increasing public concern for the welfare of animals used for food is well documented in several countries [1–3], including Australia [4–6], and has been attributed to increased awareness of animal sentience [7] alongside a growth in intensification of agriculture and the increasing urbanisation of societies. Taylor and Signal [8] argue that urbanisation has led to a "progressively 'removed' form

of knowledge regarding animals [which is] gained through, for example, nature programs and zoos rather than through exposure to primary production processes" [8] (p. 348). The data presented in this paper have been generated in the context of a project that aims to explore Australian meat consumers' attitudes toward farm animal welfare in the Australian sheep and beef cattle industries. In qualitative research, participants sometimes take their responses into unexpected domains or emphasise particular issues much more than researchers might anticipate. In this study, we found that many concerns expressed by participants about red meat production focused on the transportation of livestock in trucks and also by sea as part of Australia's live-export trade (discussed in more detail below). Hence, in this paper we specifically focus on concerns about livestock transport. We were particularly interested in whether participants spontaneously offered explanations of why they were concerned about transport and sought to have participants articulate their reasoning behind the explanations that they provided.

#### *1.2. Human-Animal Relations and Livestock Production*

Sociological research exploring human-animal relations has highlighted changes in public attitudes toward animals over the past 40 to 50 years, with an evolution from a traditional utilitarian perspective to a more compassionate and empathetic level of care. This change has been attributed to the growth of post-material values within Western societies more generally [9–12]. These changes in human-animal relations have resulted in increased tendencies to anthropomorphise, that is, to attribute human mental states (thoughts, feelings, motivations and beliefs) to non-human objects or creatures [13]. Many now view animals as moral others who are perceived to have distinct emotions and personalities [14]. Jasper and Nelkin [15] sugges<sup>t</sup> that these changes in attitudes toward animals are a result of "sentimental anthropomorphism", which stems from increasing urbanisation and a shift in focus from considering animals to be part of food production to viewing animals as increasingly meaningful members of society and/or the family. In the context of livestock production, when the characteristics of the production system are perceived to cause harm or suffering to animals, for example, because the free will of the animal is taken away, the specific conditions responsible for the suffering are likely to be perceived as immoral [16] and disgusting [17,18], particularly as people tend to anthropomorphise and consider how the animal is likely to be feeling in its current situation. As a result, many studies have demonstrated that people have become increasingly concerned about intensive animal agriculture, and that they prefer animals to be reared in free-range systems, which allow them to express "natural behaviours" [1,2,18,19].

#### *1.3. Previous Work on Consumer Perceptions of Livestock Transport*

Long distance transport of livestock is common in many countries, due to the low cost of transport relative to market value, market demand and relative seasonal variation, geographical concentration of production, and contract agreements [20,21]. Some researchers working in locales other than Australia have previously argued that people with little or no connection to agriculture lack knowledge about the practices associated with livestock transportation and animal welfare considerations during transport [22–24], and thus, many tend to believe that minimum to no transportation during an animal's life is essential to good animal welfare [25]. Previous research from Europe has revealed that space allowance, shockproof and calm transportation methods, and duration of transport were of most concern to participants [1]. Similarly, long distances travelled to slaughter have also proved problematic for Canadians [2].

#### *1.4. Livestock Transport in Australia*

Australia is a large country and livestock may be required to be moved long distances to meat processors or to ports for export [21], and there are clear standards in Australia to help ensure animal welfare during transportation. Within the transportation guidelines as published by Animal Health Australia [26], it is indicated that animals should not be loaded too tightly or too loosely to minimise

the risk of animal injury, and that internal trailer gates should be closed during transportation to ensure that the stocking density is evenly distributed within the trailer. The guidelines also state that cattle older than six months and sheep older than four months must not be off water for more than 48 h, which in turn generates the basis for the allowable travelling time.

One of the most visible parts of the sector where Australian livestock are subject to long distance transport is within the highly contentious live export trade [27], which is currently one of the most debated issues in association with livestock welfare in Australia. Debates over and campaigns against live export have been long-standing, resulting in the 2011 suspension of the cattle trade to Indonesia [28,29], and subsequent resumption of the trade, which received prominent coverage in the Australian media [28,30–32]. This media coverage also resulted in many people expressing outrage and campaigning against the trade on social media [33–35]. Research specifically into attitudes to the live export trade reveal that a majority of the Australian public does not support the trade [27,30].

#### *1.5. Research Objectives and Approach*

The study on which this paper is based endeavoured to explore the understandings of meat consumers about the welfare of sheep and beef cattle in Australia. While transportation of livestock is a major part of Australian livestock production, there is limited information about how Australian meat consumers feel about livestock transportation practices outside of the context of live export. Participants in our project were not asked explicitly about particular production practices; instead we used open-ended, general lines of questioning to form deeper understandings of what was of most concern to participants about farm animal welfare.

Our methods are based on the generic inductive qualitative model [36,37], which combines the data-gathering processes with description and interpretation while establishing research questions, along with purposeful sampling, including demographic-based recruitment. This approach strengthens our abilities to generalise, for example across populations and to other locations. However, this approach does not seek to generate statistically significant data or strict representativeness, due to the qualitative nature of the research methods utilised [37,38], which put greater emphasis on what participants say rather than how many participants made one particular claim.

In this paper, we use thematic analysis of interviews and focus groups to examine Australian meat consumers' attitudes toward livestock transportation. Unlike in some previous qualitative studies (for example Clark et al. [39]), concerns associated with the transportation of livestock within the current research arose spontaneously. We contend that transport was of particular concern for our participants, due to the visibility of truck transport within the locations where interviews and focus groups were conducted. Livestock trucks are commonplace on major thoroughfares in Adelaide and Toowoomba, and to a lesser degree in Melbourne, which were our three locations for data gathering. In relation to livestock transportation by ship, the issue of live export has been an extremely contentious public issue in Australia, which has received significant media and political attention. Due to the open nature of questioning used in the current study, we were able to explore why transport was of particular concern for participants. Our findings sugges<sup>t</sup> that consumers are concerned about animals being tightly packed or "crammed" into trucks and live export vessels and transported long distances particularly to slaughter, though there are several reasons that might underlie these concerns. We conclude that our findings sugges<sup>t</sup> that the animal meat sector may need to reconsider some of their practices to align them more closely with community expectations along with current animal welfare science, and that they should increase transparency and communication about the practices, which they utilise to ensure good animal welfare, particularly those associated with transport.

## **2. Materials and Methods**

This research was approved by the University of Adelaide's Human Research Ethics committee (H-2012-262) and conducted according to Australian national guidelines [40]. Participants were required to be over the age of 18 and regular consumers of meat to participate in this research. Overall, 66 meat consumers from across Australia participated in the research during 2015 and 2016. Of these participants, 67% were women. Participants' ages ranged from 18–24 years to over 65.

The research was conducted in Adelaide, South Australia (population of approximately 1.2 million), Melbourne, Victoria (population of approximately 4.65 million), and Toowoomba, Queensland (population of approximately 115,000). Focus groups and "mall-intercept" interviews [41] were used to collect data, with the latter utilised primarily to provide a balance in the overall sample in terms of demographics, particularly socioeconomic status. Three focus groups were conducted (2 in Adelaide, 1 in Melbourne) with 9 participants in each group (a total of 27 participants (40.9%)). The remaining 39 participants (59.1%) were involved in mall-intercept interviews. Focus group participants were recruited through community and social media announcements and flyers distributed at public events.

Focus groups and interviews were structured and included a series of discussion points about the welfare of sheep and beef cattle more broadly; however, this paper focuses on the concerns expressed by participants about the welfare of animals during transportation by truck and ship. Questions directed at participants were structured to remain open ended to allow them to express their own thoughts and use their own preferred concepts and language, rather than restricting their responses by providing a series of predetermined answers from which to select. The use of open-ended questions without prompted answers enabled us to develop a greater understanding about which issues were most important to the participants and also allowed them to reflect on their experiential knowledge [42]. Asking the same basic questions in each focus group and of each participant provided a foundation to aid comparison of results.

Focus groups and interviews were digitally recorded, and then transcribed fully, checked for accuracy against handwritten notes and anonymised. Each transcript was treated as a rich, narrative text and the first author inductively coded all open responses in NVivo [43] using methods similar to 'open-coding' [44]. These codes were subsequently reorganised, combined, and relabelled into a smaller number of general themes through a process of constant comparison. The final themes were later organised under overarching categories, and illustrative examples selected for reporting the findings. Measures of trustworthiness and rigour included comparison of coding of a subset of transcripts with the second author and discussion of all coding and themes with all authors. Quotes used in the results and discussion are illustrative and are typical of those coded to the themes identified during analysis.
