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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Perception of animal welfare issues during
Chinese transport and slaughter of livestock
by a sample of stakeholders in the industry
Xiaofei Li, Sarah Zito
¤
, Michelle Sinclair, Clive J. C. Phillips*
Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland, Gatton,
Queensland, Australia
¤Current address: Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, New Lynn,
Auckland, New Zealand.
*c.phillips@uq.edu.au
Abstract
China is the world’s biggest livestock producer, and has a rapidly expanding intensive live-
stock production in response to growing demand. The large size of the country and geo-
graphical dispersion of the livestock production systems means that animals are often
transported long distances to slaughter. This study investigated perceptions of animal wel-
fare issues by stakeholders in the Chinese transport and slaughter industry using utility
scores and adaptive conjoint analysis. An initial workshop for experts in this field identified
key concerns; these were then included in a questionnaire, which was distributed electroni-
cally to stakeholders. Stakeholders, particularly those with higher levels of education, were
most concerned about the absence of pre-slaughter stunning and failure to maintain uncon-
sciousness throughout the slaughter process. For all livestock species electrical stunning
was considered the best method of stunning and blunt trauma the worst; for cattle and
sheep stunning using a penetrating captive bolt was considered preferable to the use a per-
cussive captive bolt. Other concerns considered very important were journey quality and
livestock workers’ experience and attitudes. Heat stress and closed-sided vehicles were of
greater concern than cold stress. Loading facilities and journey length were considered of
intermediate importance, while lairage and methods for catching chickens were of least con-
cern. The importance of some welfare concerns, e.g. livestock having to remain standing
during a journey, was more commonly recognised by stakeholders who reported a high
level of knowledge and experience. Therefore, these welfare issues could be a focus for
future training activities. Compared to respondents directly involved in livestock transport,
respondents involved in teaching and researching within livestock production rated the pre-
sented animal welfare issues as more important. These results can be used to guide devel-
opment of training programmes, animal welfare research, and certification and regulatory
control to target challenges to animal welfare in livestock transport and slaughter in China.
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028 June 22, 2018 1 / 21
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OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Li X, Zito S, Sinclair M, Phillips CJC
(2018) Perception of animal welfare issues during
Chinese transport and slaughter of livestock by a
sample of stakeholders in the industry. PLoS ONE
13(6): e0197028. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0197028
Editor: Arda Yildirim, Gaziosmanpasa University,
TURKEY
Received: November 29, 2017
Accepted: April 25, 2018
Published: June 22, 2018
Copyright: ©2018 Li et al. This is an open access
article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original author and
source are credited.
Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are
available from ICPSR (https://www.icpsr.umich.
edu/icpsrweb/).
Funding: This work was supported by University of
Queensland in Australia and University Putra
Malaysia, under the framework of the World
Organisation for Animal Health (OIE)’s David
Bayvel Collaborating Centre for Animal Welfare and
Bioethical Analysis. It was funded by the New
Zealand Government Ministry of Primary
Industries, the European Commission via OIE,
Introduction
The livestock industry in the People’s Republic of China (hereafter referred to as China) has
rapidly developed over the past two decades [1]. In 2014, China produced approximately five
billion chickens, 480 million pigs, 202 million sheep and 117 million cattle, making it the
world’s largest livestock producer [1]. It was the world’s biggest meat producer (approximately
83 billion tonnes in 2013) [2], with major exports of beef [3], pork [4], chicken and other meats
[4]. In addition, its population is one of the world’s largest meat consumers [5]. Therefore, the
livestock industry is of considerable economic importance in China, with an estimated output
value of RMB 25.8 trillion (approximately 4 trillion USD) in 2011, which was 31.7% of the total
value of Chinese agriculture (including crops, forestry, livestock, and fishery) [6].
The scale of livestock production and its associated intensification has resulted in growing
animal welfare concerns, both in terms of numbers of animals and the welfare conditions [7,
8]. Chinese traditional ethics from Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism support compassion
for non-human animals [8]. However, with the current industrialisation of China’s livestock
production, many Western farming practices (such as gestation crates, castration, tail docking
and ear-clipping of pigs, beak-trimming and battery cages for hens, castration and early wean-
ing of calves, and forced feeding of ducks and geese for foie-gras production) are being
adopted and utilised with increasing frequency. At the same time, some Western countries
(particularly in the European Union) are phasing out some of these practices, such as battery
cages and stalls for sows during gestation [9]. Due to the large numbers of livestock produced
in China, this is probably one of the major animal welfare concerns in the world today [8].
Within China the concept of animal welfare is little understood, and in a recent survey of pub-
lic opinions toward farm animal welfare in China, approximately two thirds of respondents
did not know what the term meant [10]. In Chinese, the usual translation is ‘dongwu fuli’. Fuli
literally means interests in life, especially care taken for employees by providing food, shelter
and medical care, thus creating a concept of a high level of provision for needs which has then
been applied to animals (dongwu)[11]. The high level of provision described in this concept
may lead some to question the validity of concern for animal welfare, when humans are not
afforded all of these provisions. Confusion also exists between animal welfare and animal
rights causes [12]. Motivation in China to improve animal welfare has been lacking due to con-
cern that farm profitability would be adversely affected as a consequence [8,11]. Nevertheless,
there is a growing recognition that trade with overseas partners will require international ani-
mal welfare standards to be met [8,11,12,13,14]. China’s trade partners in both the import
and export markets have expressed concern regarding Chinese animal welfare standards [15,
16,17]. However, there are an increasing number of Chinese animal protectionists, and they
are one of the most active interest groups in China [8]. The proposal, in 2009, to introduce a
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Law in China was an important development in animal wel-
fare in the country, but the progress on advancing animal welfare has been slow and there is
still no national farm animal protection legislation in effect [11,12,13,14].
In terms of the regulations or legislations related to animal welfare in China, a pig slaugh-
tering management regulation was first introduced in 1998 and in December 2007 it was
revised [18], but neither of these required stunning before slaughter. In 2008, an act outlining
requirements for humane slaughter was drafted [12]. Since 2014, there have been several pro-
posals to develop more comprehensive livestock regulations for animal welfare, posed by for
example the China Association for Standardization [19], the Chinese Veterinary Medical Asso-
ciation, and in 2017 the Chinese government [12].
The welfare of animals in livestock industries is a responsibility shared between farmers,
the livestock companies and industry service providers, such as transporters, slaughter
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028 June 22, 2018 2 / 21
World Animal Protection, Universiti Putra Malaysia
(UPM), the Malaysian Government Department of
Veterinary Services via UPM, and the Australian
Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food. The funders had no role in study design,
data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or
preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
facilities, and veterinarians [20]. Livestock industries must comply with animal welfare legisla-
tion but are also indirectly responsible to the public and consumers for the welfare of the farm
animals [20]. Consumers in many countries have shown increasing interest in animal welfare
issues in recent years, and improvements in animal welfare standards have often been driven
by concern from consumers and the public [21]. As well as putting pressure on industry to
improve farm animal welfare, consumers are increasingly willing to choose products based at
least partly on the perceived welfare of the animals [10,20,21]. For example, consumers in
Shanghai and Beijing are now showing a preference for pork with better animal welfare
claimed in the labelling, not just because they thought it was tastier and safer but for the benefit
of the animals [22]. Successful management of issues with a human dimension requires
involvement of stakeholders in the definition of the problem to be addressed, decision-making,
and development of relevant and targeted strategies informed by research [23,24,25]. The
importance of understanding and engaging local stakeholders in strategies to address issues
has been demonstrated in other comparable areas of human-animal interaction, such as
human-wildlife conflict, wildlife and environmental conservation, and management of intro-
duced animals [23,26]. Marketing theory stresses the importance of understanding the target
audience in order to make marketing campaigns relevant and engaging [27]. Engaging stake-
holders in the Chinese livestock system to improve animal welfare first requires an under-
standing of what the perceived welfare issues are, but they are little understood for Chinese
livestock transport and slaughter.
Livestock transport and slaughter are two areas in which animal welfare may be of consid-
erable concern. Animals in China are transported over long distances (for example, chickens
travelling 2500 km from Jilin, near North Korea, to Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong [28]),
which could potentially have serious adverse effects on their welfare [28]. In addition, humane
slaughter is a relatively new concept in China, with currently no requirements for this in many
slaughter facilities [8,10].
Choice tests can be used to gauge stakeholders’ attitudes to animal welfare, in which they
select which of two options provides the better welfare for animals [20,29,30]. Such conjoint
analysis can be adaptive (Adaptive Conjoint Analysis, ACA), in which case a computer cus-
tomizes the questions according to the respondents’ answers, giving advantages over tradi-
tional survey techniques [20]. This technique was designed for market research to determine
consumers’ product preferences [31,32] but has also been adapted to determine opinions
related to the importance of different welfare issues in Australian livestock production [20,33].
The strength of this technique is its ability to ask respondents realistic questions which mimic
the trade-offs that people need to make in the real world. For example, it is not always possible
to ensure that every aspect of animal welfare is ideal in a given scenario. Therefore, it is neces-
sary to decide which aspect of an animal’s welfare is most important so that it can be priori-
tized. Web-based interactive ACA questionnaires can be constructed using intuitive software
(e.g. Sawtooth Software Inc., Sequim, WA, USA), which allows emphasis on issues that require
additional questions because previous responses are too similar to indicate the respondent’s
preferences. This adaptive capacity facilitates a rapid and accurate definition of the preferences
or opinions of the questionnaire respondent [33]. The computer generates utility values,
which are measures of the respondent’s relative strength of preference for each level of welfare
provision on each issue. For example, for the welfare issue of stunning before slaughter, the
levels might be electrical stunning, penetrating captive bolt, percussive captive bolt, blunt
trauma and no stunning. In our opinion, a web-based interactive ACA questionnaire was a
better technique for the purposes of this study than a conventional questionnaire.
The objectives of this study were to establish what the perceived animal welfare issues in
livestock slaughter and transport are in China, using ACA and utility scores, analysed through
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028 June 22, 2018 3 / 21
multivariable analyses. When coupled with in situ measurements of welfare, this information
is anticipated to improve understanding of animal welfare issues in transport and slaughter in
the Chinese livestock industry and inform the direction of future animal welfare
improvement.
Material and methods
Ethics statement
The study was approved by the University of Queensland Ethics Committee (Project
No.2015001840).
Establishing the welfare issues
An initial one-day focus group meeting in December 2015 addressed the question ‘what are
the most readily identified farm animal welfare concerns for commercial animal welfare pro-
fessionals in China?’ Participants excluded fish as a farm animal of interest. The participants
consisted of eight senior livestock transport and slaughter company representatives and live-
stock production academics operating in and around Guangzhou, China. They were invited
by a senior academic representative of South China Agricultural University based on their pre-
eminence in the livestock sector. The participants also had self-identified interests in improv-
ing animal welfare for commercial reasons, including gaining access to export markets. The
area of Guangzhou was chosen because it is one of the most important regions in China in
terms of livestock production, including that supported by foreign investment [34]. Atten-
dance was voluntary and unrewarded.
In the focus group discussion, which took the form of a wide-net participant-directed
brainstorm, respondents systematically commented on potential welfare challenges within
their industries. After discussing the issues generally in the first half of the day, the group was
asked to collectively decide on the 15 most pressing animal welfare concerns during livestock
transport and slaughter in China. The major issues were listed, and discussed again to ensure
that the list was an accurate representation of their collective view.
The issues identified for livestock during transport were:
1) Experience of livestock transport workers
2) Attitude of livestock transport workers
3) Method of catching chickens
4) Part of body used to catch fully developed chickens
5) Livestock loading facilities
6) Type of road vehicle used to transport livestock
7) Overcrowding of livestock in transport vehicles
8) Length of journey to slaughterhouse
9) Maintenance of animal comfort during transportation (temperature)
10) Maintenance of animal comfort during transportation (provision of rest and water)
11) Stress to livestock during journey
Issues identified for livestock during slaughter were:
1) Pre-slaughter accommodation
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028 June 22, 2018 4 / 21
2) Stunning procedures for poultry and pigs
3) Stunning procedures for cattle and sheep
4) Achievement and maintenance of unconsciousness during the slaughter process
Water injecting of pigs was raised as a potential issue although it was not included in the
distributed list as it is currently illegal in China. The practice involves forcing water into the
stomach of pigs shortly before slaughter, or injecting it into their hearts, to increase their
weight. Each issue was further described by two to five levels (or different livestock manage-
ment scenarios) with different welfare implications (Table 1). These were developed and
refined during the meeting.
After the focus group meeting, two new issues were added by the authors of this paper
to ensure that the issues were balanced and consistent: ‘attitude of livestock transport work-
ers’ and ‘level of experience of livestock transport workers’. In addition, the ‘maintenance of
animal comfort during transportation through provision of rest and water’ was added to
ensure clarity and consistency with a question about stress, and ‘stunning procedure for cattle
and sheep’ was added to match the issue that was raised for pigs in the focus group meeting.
The questionnaire (S1 and S2 Tables)
The outcome of this focus group was used as the basis for a survey using intuitive software,
which was distributed electronically to a wider group of stakeholders in China, to include a
more diverse work force within the animal transportation and slaughter sectors and increase the
number of respondents. The questionnaire was developed using the list of issues, relevant litera-
ture, and consultation with industry and academic stakeholders. Using a web-based interactive
ACA questionnaire format, it was piloted with volunteers and changes were made based on
their feedback. After finalising the questionnaire in English, it was translated into Mandarin by
a professional translator. The meaning and translation were checked for accuracy and consis-
tency of meaning by a third party fluent in both Mandarin and English. In addition, our aca-
demic partners in China were sent both the English and Mandarin versions of the questionnaire
to compare in order to double check the accuracy of the questionnaire translation.
The finalised questionnaire was then loaded into the online software (Sawtooth Software
version 8.4.8., Sawtooth Software Inc., Sequim, WA, USA). This has the advantages of being
able to intelligently adapt the questionnaire in real-time to each respondent based on their
answers and engaging the respondent by using a computer-interactive method [33].
Distribution of the questionnaire to potential respondents. The questionnaire was dis-
tributed to people involved in livestock transport and slaughter in the China during February
and March 2016. We used a virtual snowballing technique, starting with our academic and
industry partners and stakeholders in the Chinese livestock industry. A recruitment e-mail
with information about the study was sent to the focus group attendees; they were then asked
to forward the recruitment email to all Chinese livestock industry stakeholders in their social
and professional networks with request for them in turn to forward the recruitment e-mail to
other relevant people. A link in the e-mail connected them directly to the survey site. Those
who volunteered to participate clicked on the link and were directed to the first page of the sur-
vey, where participants were shown information about the questionnaire. This stated that: par-
ticipation was voluntary, participants needed to be 18 years of age or older, the study had been
cleared in accordance with the ethical review guidelines and processes of The University of
Queensland, and that participants could discuss their participation with project staff or the
School Ethics officer (contact details were given). Respondents confirmed on-line that they
were over 18 years of age, that they understood that their participation in the study was
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
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Table 1. Welfare issues and their utility components, indicating the relative strength of preference for each level
of welfare provision on each issue. Each issue had 2–5 utility levels demonstrating the perceived importance for ani-
mal welfare. The issues are listed in declining order of importance value (the difference that each issue made to the
total of all the utility values for each respondent). The average importance and zero-centred utility values are listed for
each issue, as rated by respondents (n = 267), who were stakeholders in the animal transportation and slaughter sectors,
to a questionnaire on the major welfare issues in the Chinese livestock transport and slaughter industry.
Issue and its importance value Levels Utility
value
Stunning procedures for cattle and sheep (8.64) Electrically stunned before they are slaughtered 36.3
Stunned with a penetrating captive bolt 9.9
Stunned with a percussive captive bolt -4.5
Not stunned before they are slaughtered -13.3
Stunned by hitting them on the head with a hard
object
-28.4
Stunning procedures for pigs and poultry (8.52) Electrically stunned before they are slaughtered 27.1
Stunned with carbon dioxide before they are
slaughtered
24.8
Not stunned before they are slaughtered -13.2
Stunned by hitting them on the head with a hard
object
-38.7
Stress to livestock during journey (7.78) Comfortable journey with no evidence of bruising
or vomiting
53.1
Uncomfortable and stressful journey and there is
some evidence of bruising or vomiting
-12.8
Stressful journey and there is significant bruising
and mortality of livestock
-40.3
Maintenance of animal comfort during
transportation (temperature) (7.72)
Comfortable for the livestock 55.3
Causes cold stress to the livestock -20.5
Causes heat stress to the livestock -34.8
Achievement and maintenance of unconsciousness
during the slaughter process (7.15)
Remain unconscious throughout the slaughter
process
28.9
Regain consciousness after stunning during the
slaughter process
-28.9
Experience of livestock transport workers (7.06) High 39.4
Moderate 5.6
Little -45.0
Attitude of livestock transport workers (6.47) Good 30.0
Reasonable 12.9
Poor -42.8
Overcrowding of livestock in transport vehicles
(6.26)
Not able to stand up due to overcrowding 34.3
Able to stand up -34.3
Type of road vehicle (6.19) Open-sided vehicle 16.5
Semi-closed vehicle 10.5
Closed-sided vehicle -26.9
Maintenance of animal comfort during
transportation (provision of rest and water) (6.19)
Provided with a stop for water 26.7
Not provided with a stop for water -26.7
Loading facilities (5.85) With a gently sloping loading ramp, a non-slip
floor and no sharp turns
17.2
With a steep loading ramp slope, a slippery floor
or sharp turns
-17.2
Duration of journey to slaughterhouse (5.70) Less than 3 hours 27.7
3–6 hours 0.6
More than 6 hours -28.3
(Continued)
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028 June 22, 2018 6 / 21
voluntary, consented to participate, and to their responses being used as outlined. Only partici-
pants who gave consent answered questions from the survey. Demographic questions were
used to gain information about type and duration of the Chinese livestock industry, gender,
age, education level, geographical location of work relating to the Chinese livestock industry,
and knowledge of livestock transport and slaughter in China. Finally, respondents were pro-
vided with a definition of animal welfare (based on the World Organisation for Animal Health
definition in the Terrestrial Code [35]): “Animal welfare means how an animal is coping with
the conditions in which it lives. An animal is in a good state of welfare if it is healthy, comfort-
able, well-nourished, safe, able to express innate behaviour, and if it is not suffering from
unpleasant states such as pain, fear, and distress.”
The sections of the questionnaire, including adaptive conjoint analysis. Part 1: Rating
of levels. First, issue levels were screened by asking the respondent to rate the importance of
each, which allowed the software to learn enough about the respondent’s preferences to con-
struct initial part-worth estimates. Respondents were given an introduction before they were
presented with the issues: “In this section you will be asked about different livestock manage-
ment scenarios and, in your opinion, how acceptable they are in relation to animal welfare.
Please consider only the immediate impact of each scenario on the animals’ welfare, regardless
of the associated practical and economic factors.” The responses were recorded on a 5-point
Likert scale from “not acceptable” to “very acceptable”.
Part 2: Importance questions. Respondents were asked to rate how important they
thought the difference was between their perceived worst and best levels of animal welfare for
each of 15 issues (Table 1). They were given an introduction before they were presented with
the perceived best and worst levels for each issue: “In this next section, you will be presented
with two livestock management scenarios. Please consider whether the scenarios are different
in terms of their immediate impact on animal welfare. If you think that animal welfare does
not differ between the two scenarios, please choose ‘not important’. If you think there is a dif-
ference between the two scenarios, then use the scale to show how important you think the dif-
ference is (please assume that all other aspects of the livestock management are acceptable)”.
The 5-point Likert scale was from “not important” to “extremely important”.
For example:
Respondents were asked to rate the importance, in terms of animal welfare, of the differ-
ence between an animal remaining unconscious throughout the slaughter process and an ani-
mal regaining consciousness during the slaughter process after stunning.
Part 3: Customized paired comparison trade-off questions. Respondents were presented
with ten sets of two combinations of livestock management scenarios, based on their previous
answers. Since it was not practical to have respondents evaluate all possible animal welfare
combinations, the ACA approach allowed the efficient collection of detailed information on
Table 1. (Continued)
Issue and its importance value Levels Utility
value
Pre-slaughter accommodation for cattle, pigs and
sheep (5.59)
Provided with 6 hours or more rest and water
before slaughter
28.3
Provided with no rest or water before slaughter -28.3
Method of catching chickens (5.51) Manually in the light 18.2
Manually in the dark -18.2
Part of chicken’s body used for catching (5.38) Manually caught by the legs and feet 30.0
Manually caught by the head or wings or tail -30.0
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028.t001
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
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animal welfare issue importance by presenting respondents with only a carefully chosen set of
hypothetical welfare scenarios for evaluation. Questions provided the most additional infor-
mation by selecting concepts that were known to be nearly equal in importance to the respon-
dent, given what was already known about the respondent’s values from their previous
responses. The respondent was then asked which of the pairs of hypothetical welfare scenarios
was preferable to them assuming that all other aspects of the livestock management were
acceptable and considering just the immediate impact of each procedure on the animal wel-
fare. Following each response, the estimates of part-worthy were updated to allow the software
to determine what pair of concepts to present to the respondent next. Certain pairs of issue lev-
els that rationally could not appear together in the same concept were specified as part of the
questionnaire logic (for example, welfare scenarios that are specific to poultry with a welfare
scenario that is specific to cattle). In contrast to direct questioning methods simply asking how
important each issue is, conjoint analysis forces respondents to make difficult trade-offs, as in
a real world decision-making process [36].
One combination was presented on the LEFT side of the screen and the other on the
RIGHT side (Fig 1).
Part 4: ACA calibration questions. Six calibrating scenarios were composed by the soft-
ware, using those issues determined to be most important to the respondents, who were asked
to rate how acceptable the scenario was to them from an animal welfare point of view. They
selected a number between 0 (definitely unacceptable from an animal welfare point of view)
and 100 (very acceptable from an animal welfare point of view). Scenarios were chosen to
occupy the entire range from very unacceptable to very acceptable for the respondent. The
concept the respondent was expected to find least acceptable among all possible concepts was
presented first, and the one expected to be most acceptable was presented second. Those two
Fig 1. Example of combination scenario.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028.g001
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
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concepts established a frame of reference and the remaining concepts were selected to have
intermediate levels of acceptability. Each animal welfare scenario had two to five components,
for example:
Livestock transport workers with a poor attitude.
Fully developed chickens are manually caught by the legs and feet.
Poultry are caught manually in the light.
Finally, respondents were given the opportunity to comment in a free text field whether
there were any other welfare issues associated with livestock transport and slaughter in China
that they believed were important but were not covered in the questionnaire.
Data analysis
Utility values. At the end of the ACA questionnaire respondent utility estimates, indicat-
ing mean acceptability of each level, were calculated using a hierarchical Bayes utility estima-
tion that estimated strengths of preference for different levels of the welfare issues. The
Sawtooth software employed an algorithm to calculate the average utilities for the entire sam-
ple [37]. Utility estimates were determined for each Level of each Issue using a simulator in the
software, which imported respondents’ Level preferences into a hierarchical Bayes model
using a Monte Carlo Markov chain algorithm. This uses data from the population (means and
covariances) to estimate the probability distribution of the parameters using conditional prob-
ability techniques at different levels [38]. The data were normalised across respondents by
zero-centring the Utility values within each Issue so that their sum was equal to zero. Levels of
an Issue rated highly by respondents were indicated by a positive Utility value, and those given
a low rating, a negative value. The utility estimates were cumulated over respondents to pro-
vide an average estimate of the importance of each welfare concern [39].
Relative importance values. The relative importance values were calculated for each issue
from the difference that each issue made to the total of all the utility values for each respon-
dent. This difference was the range in the issue’s utility values and was calculated as a percent-
age of the issue’s relative range, resulting in a set of issue importance values that add to 100
percent. The relative importance values are ratios, so an issue with a relative importance of
40% is twice as important as one with a relative importance of 20%. The relative importance
values for all the respondents were used to calculate mean importance values for each issue,
which were then ranked in order from the highest to lowest importance [39].
Statistical analyses. Because there were only four people above 56 years of age, they were
added to the group of people aged 46–55 years to make one group of >46 years. Multivariate
analysis of variance was used to assess the significance of the demographic factors on each
issue. It was used to calculate least square means and standard errors of Importance Values.
The general linear model included industry involvement, gender, education and geography as
fixed factors, and age, length of involvement, and knowledge or transport and slaughter as
covariates. The Anderson Darling test was used to examine the residuals for normal distribu-
tion, the Levene’s test for equality of variance and Fisher’s pairwise comparisons were used to
discriminate between individual means post hoc. Where the Anderson Darling tests indicated
that residuals were not normal, data were transformed to log
10
or Box Cox, using optimal
lamda, before analysis. Probability values were considered significant at <0.05.
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
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Table 2. Demographic characteristics of respondents, who were stakeholders in the animal transportation and
slaughter sectors, to a questionnaire on the major welfare issues in the Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
industry, as defined in an initial expert meeting (n = 267).
Demographics Numbers of respondents (%)
Role in livestock transport and slaughter
Livestock production research or teaching role 72 (27.0)
Veterinary role 0 (0)
Government role relating to livestock production 34 (12.7)
Environmental protection role related to livestock 16 (6.0)
Livestock welfare research or advocacy 21 (7.9)
Livestock farming 30 (11.2)
Livestock transport 88 (33.0)
Livestock slaughter 0 (0)
Not involved 6 (2.2)
Gender
Male 164 (61.9)
Female 96 (36.2)
Other 5 (1.9)
Age (years)
18–25 years 105 (39.3)
26–35 years 97 (36.3)
36–45 years 47 (17.6)
46–55 years 14 (5.24)
56–65 years 2 (0.75)
65 years or more 2 (0.75)
Geographical location
North China 15 (5.7)
Northeast China 4 (1.5)
East China 9 (3.4)
Central China 9 (3.4)
Southwest China 3 (1.1)
Northeast China 15 (5.7)
South China 202 (76.5)
Throughout China 5 (1.9)
Outside of China 2 (0.8)
Education
University postgraduate degree 65 (24.6)
University undergraduate degree 105 (39.8)
Technical or trades college 27 (10.2)
High school 23 (8.7)
Middle school 40 (15.1)
Other 4 (1.5)
Experience (years)
Less than a year 63 (24.0)
1–5 years 97 (36.9)
More than 5 years 103 (39.1)
Knowledge of livestock transport
Very high level 9 (3.4)
High level 26 (9.9)
Neither a high nor low level 147 (55.7)
(Continued)
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028 June 22, 2018 10 / 21
Calculations of utility estimates and relative importance values were performed using Saw-
tooth Software version 8.4.8. All other analyses were performed using Minitab version 17
[Minitab 17 Statistical Software (2010). State College, PA: Minitab, Inc. (www.minitab.com)]
Results
The questionnaire was started by 943 respondents. Of these, 332 dropped out after the ques-
tion asking what industry involvement they had (presumably because they did not fit into any
category), 180 dropped out after reading the instructions, 28 dropped out during the paired
comparison questions, three after other issues, one after the last system question. Although
399 respondents finished the survey online, not all of them had utility values, and only 267
respondents had answered the demographic, ACA rating and importance questions, and cus-
tomized paired questions contributing to the utility value.
The most common role of stakeholders was in livestock transport (Table 2), which repre-
sented 33%, and the second most common was in livestock production research or a teaching
role, which both represented 27% of respondents. Only 2.2% of respondents were not involved
in any way, and few were involved in an environmental protection role related to livestock,
and none in a veterinary role or in livestock slaughter. Government roles relating to livestock
production, livestock farmers, and livestock welfare research or advocacy were all represented
(12.7%, 11.2% and 7.9% respectively).
Stakeholders’ demographics
Almost two-thirds of respondents were male. Most respondents lived in South China, but
there was representation from all the other regions in China. In relation to their highest educa-
tional level, nearly 40% had a university degree and a further 25% had a postgraduate degree,
making this a comparatively well-educated sample of the population. Most of the respondents
were experienced in their field, with fewer than 25% having less than one-year’s experience in
their work. Most self-reported that their knowledge of livestock transport and slaughter was at
neither a high nor a low level; alternatively, they indicated that it was at a low level.
Importance values of the issues
The issue respondents considered most important was stunning procedure, first for cattle and
sheep, then pigs and poultry (Tables 1and S3). This was supported by a high rating of the
importance of achieving and maintaining unconsciousness during slaughter. The issues
respondents considered next most important were journey quality, reducing stress and main-
taining animal comfort, livestock workers’ experience and attitudes, overcrowding, and type of
vehicle. Considered less important than these were the loading facilities and journey length.
Table 2. (Continued)
Demographics Numbers of respondents (%)
Low level 72 (27.3)
Very low level 10 (3.8)
Knowledge of livestock slaughter
Very high level 13 (4.9)
High level 31 (11.7)
Neither a high nor low level 130 (49.2)
Low level 78 (29.6)
Very low level 12 (4.6)
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028.t002
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
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The issues respondents considered least important were the pre-slaughter accommodation
and the method and body part used for catching chickens.
Utility values within issues
The differences in utility values within issues defines the relative acceptability of each practice
for respondents in terms of animal welfare (Table 2). Major differences, over and above obvi-
ous and expected responses, are described as follows. In relation to stunning of cattle and
sheep, the most acceptable procedure for welfare was electrical stunning before slaughter, and
the least was hitting the animal on the head with a hard object; the latter was perceived to be
worse than not stunning at all. A similar perception was evident for pigs and poultry, and car-
bon dioxide stunning was considered marginally worse than electrical stunning in terms of the
animal welfare impact. For cattle and sheep, use of the penetrating captive bolt was perceived
to be more acceptable than the percussive captive bolt. Heat stress during transport to slaugh-
ter was perceived to be less acceptable than cold stress. Open-sided vehicles were perceived to
be slightly more acceptable than semi-closed vehicles, with closed-sided vehicles much less
acceptable than either of these. In relation to duration of transport, journeys of less than 3
hours were perceived to be most acceptable, then 3–6 hours; journeys of more than 6 hours
were least acceptable.
Demographic effects
As respondents’ self-reported knowledge of transport increased, their rating of the acceptabil-
ity of many issues increased (Table 3). Similarly, as respondents’ self-reported length of
involvement in the industry increased, they increased their rating of the acceptability of several
issues (Table 4).
Stakeholder involvement. Respondents in the livestock production teaching and research
role rated stunning of cattle and sheep electrically and livestock remaining unconscious
throughout the slaughter process as more acceptable, and not stunning pigs and poultry less
acceptable, compared to livestock transporters (Table 5). They also, in conjunction with those
in a government role and livestock farmers, rated catching poultry manually in the dark as
more acceptable than livestock transporters.
Other demographic factors
Better educated stakeholders (with a university degree) perceived stunning poultry and pigs by
carbon dioxide to be more important for animal welfare than those educated only to high
Table 3. Effects of the knowledge of respondents (n = 267), who were stakeholders in the animal transportation and slaughter sectors, about transport on their
ascribed utility values, which measure the perceived importance of different issues for animal welfare, when the relationship was examined by linear regression in a
general linear model. The relationship is reported as a regression coefficient, SE coefficient and probability (P) value of the regression being significant.
Coefficient Standard Error of the coefficient P-value
Livestock being able to stand up 0.287 0.107 0.007
Livestock remaining unconscious 0.323 0.145 0.027
Livestock transport workers with a high level of experience 0.464 0.219 0.035
Less than 3 hours journey to slaughterhouse 0.018 0.008 0.022
Comfortable temperature 0.243 0.114 0.034
Comfortable journey with no evidence of bruising or vomiting 0.280 0.117 0.018
Stunning poultry and pigs electrically 0.299 0.107 0.005
Stunning cattle and sheep electrically 0.279 0.128 0.030
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028.t003
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
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school or a technical college level (Table 6). Similarly, those with a postgraduate degree per-
ceived electrical stunning of poultry and pigs to be more important for animal welfare than
those educated only to a school or a technical college level. Women perceived transporting
livestock by an open-sided vehicle to be more important for animal welfare than men (mean
utility values 0.46 and 0.096, respectively, SED = 0.157, P = 0.04).
Discussion
In this study of Chinese stakeholders in the livestock transport and slaughter industries, stun-
ning for cattle and sheep was rated as the most important animal welfare concern, amongst the
different options given, followed by stunning for pigs and poultry. In contrast, the animal wel-
fare concern considered least important was the method of catching chickens. This suggests
that Chinese stakeholders were more concerned about slaughter issues than transport issues.
This is in accordance with a recent study of the attitudes of Asian students of veterinary medi-
cine and animal science towards slaughter and transport of livestock, in which the students in
China were more concerned about slaughter issues than transport issues [40]. A greater con-
cern for the slaughter process, rather than transport, is also in accordance with views in Aus-
tralia towards slaughter standards in Indonesia, where, in particular, the absence of stunning
has caused major concern amongst the public [41]. However, a survey in Australia showed
Table 4. Significant (P<0.05) effects of the duration of involvement of respondents, who were stakeholders in the animal transportation and slaughter sectors,
with the industry on the mean utility values of issues, which measure the perceived importance of different issues for animal welfare, when the relationship is exam-
ined by linear regression in a general linear model. The relationship is reported as a regression coefficient, SE coefficient and probability (P) value of the regression
being significant.
Coefficient Standard Error of the coefficient P-value
Catching fully developed chickens manually by the legs and feet 0.188 0.091 0.039
Livestock remaining unconscious 0.441 0.153 0.004
Livestock being able to stand up 0.336 0.112 0.003
Stunning cattle and sheep electrically 0.365 0.134 0.007
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028.t004
Table 5. Significant (P<0.05) effects of type of industry involvement of stakeholders, who were stakeholders in the animal transportation and slaughter sectors, on
the mean utility values of different levels, which measure the strength of preference for animal welfare. High values indicate high acceptability on animal welfare
grounds. There were no veterinary or livestock slaughterer respondents, and a small number of respondents that did not align themselves with any of the stated industries
were excluded.
Livestock
production
research/ teaching
role
Government
role
Environmental
protection role related
to livestock
Livestock
welfare research/
advocacy
Livestock
farming
Livestock
transport
F value
(d.f. 5,
227)
SED
†
P-
value
Poultry caught manually
in the dark
0.67
a
0.69
a
0.65
ab
0.66
ab
0.69
a
0.63
b
2.67 0.0187 0.02
Poultry and pigs not
stunned before slaughter
-0.75
b
-0.40
ab
-0.28
ab
-0.45
ab
-0.32
ab
-0.01
a
2.7 0.3077 0.021
Cattle and sheep
electrically stunned
before they are
slaughtered
1.47
a
1.04
ab
0.88
ab
1.40
ab
1.27
ab
0.84
b
2.3 0.2667 0.032
Livestock remain
unconscious throughout
the slaughter process
1.42
a
1.17
ab
0.67
ab
0.97
ab
1.22
ab
0.63
b
2.3 0.3031 0.029
a,b: means with different superscripts differ significantly (P <0.05) according to Fisher’s pairwise comparison.
†
Standard Error of the Difference between two means
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028.t005
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
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that road and ship transport were of greater concern than pre-slaughter stunning to stakehold-
ers in the Australian livestock industries [20]; this is probably because the pre-slaughter stun-
ning is the norm in Australian abattoirs. Concern about slaughter practices in China has been
heightened recently by the link between slaughter of poultry in markets and the emergence of
bird flu (H7N9) [42]. This occurred initially in 2013 and by January 2017 had caused the
deaths of 79 people, with 192 people infected [42]. In some provinces markets have been
required to end the slaughter of poultry [43].
It was expected that government officials would demonstrate greater concern for welfare
issues associated with international trade as some livestock and poultry products have been
refused by the European Union and the USA due to welfare concerns [11]. However, this was
not observed in our results, perhaps because the officials were not dealing directly with inter-
national trade. Most respondents were either involved in livestock and poultry production or
in livestock teaching and researching roles, and most (75%) had more than one year’s experi-
ence in their work. As respondents’ level of education increased they rated stunning before
slaughter to be more important, and self-reported professional knowledge and experience
were also positively associated to the importance attributed to stunning. In China, the relation-
ship between meat quality and welfare prior to slaughter has been widely reported in academic
literature [44,45,46,47]. Despite this, the maintenance of good conditions during transport
and slaughter is often neglected [48]. In the absence of any transport legislation or animal wel-
fare legislation generally, and a strong market imperative to grow the livestock industries,
there is little incentive to improve welfare at this point in the animal’s life [28].
Chinese consumers are showing more concern about livestock and poultry products’ quality
and safety than previously [11]. Issues relating to unsafe food have occurred frequently in the
country, and this has had an impact on public health. It has also negatively impacted on the
national economy as products are imported at high cost (e.g. milk powder) from overseas as
they are considered to be safer [49]. As food safety is currently of significant concern to consum-
ers in China, one way to encourage good conditions for livestock during transport and slaughter
is to emphasize the links between improved conditions and food safety [11]. In addition, accord-
ing to a recent survey of Chinese public preferences for pork, nearly 77% of consumers prefer to
purchase meat produced under good welfare conditions even if it costs more [11].
The survey also highlighted some of the aspects of transport and slaughter that are related
to the geographical conditions in the country. For example, respondents in this study rated
open-sided vehicles more acceptable in terms of animal welfare than semi-closed and closed-
sided vehicles. Livestock and poultry are generally transported at a high density in China, and
in the summer transport may occur in high temperatures, which will cause heat stress and
sometimes even death [48]. Good ventilation during transport is considered one of the most
Table 6. Significant (P<0.05) effects of level of education of stakeholders, who were stakeholders in the animal transportation and slaughter sectors, on the mean
utility values of issues, which measure the perceived importance of different issues for animal welfare. High values indicate high acceptability.
University
postgraduate degree
University
undergraduate degree
Technical or trades
college
High
school
Middle
school
Other F value
(d.f. 5,
227)
SED
†
P-
value
Poultry/pigs electrically
stunned before slaughter
1.19
a
0.91
ab
0.51
b
0.46
b
0.55
b
1.68
a
2.56 0.2060 0.018
Poultry/pigs stunned with
CO
2
before slaughter
0.66
ab
0.77
a
0.18
b
0.07
b
0.24
ab
-1.46
c
3.7 0.2376 0.004
a,b: means with different superscripts differ significantly (P <0.05) according to Fisher’s pairwise comparison
†
Standard Error of the Difference between two means
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028.t006
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
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important factors, which may improve the meat quality of the carcass [48]. Most (77%) of the
respondents were from South China where the ambient temperatures are often high. Ventila-
tion is generally better in open-sided than closed-sided vehicles [48], and good ventilation will
reduce the temperature to which animals are exposed during transport [50]. Conversely in the
northern Europe where there are often cooler conditions and lower stocking densities, closed-
sided vehicles are usually preferred due to the ability to control ventilation, and, consequently
avoid the chilling of livestock, e.g. [51] for chickens. Journey length was not considered very
important but this may have been because the options were <3, 3–6 and >6 hours, which
reflects the fact that in China pigs and chickens may be raised relatively close to their point of
slaughter. There are however many exceptions where livestock are transported long distances
across this large country, mainly from the inland regions to provide meat for consumers in the
east coast cities [28].
Stakeholder involvement
Significant differences were observed between the respondents in different roles in livestock
transport and slaughter, in particular between transport workers and livestock production
teachers/researchers. The latter found stunning for livestock and catching the poultry in the
dark to be more acceptable than did the transport workers. It has been observed previously
that those involved in an aspect of a production process are more likely to rate it as more
important [20,29]. However, the livestock transport workers in this survey did not rate trans-
port issues as more important than slaughter issues. This may be because transport workers in
China are not directly involved with the animals, but are organizing the transport. They are
also generally not well educated, and so unlikely to be well informed about animal welfare
[10]. The emphasis on stunning by those respondents that were well educated, including the
teachers/researchers, may reflect their understanding of its benefit in alleviating suffering at
the end of life, which transporters may not appreciate. This suggests that it is important to give
teachers/researchers the opportunity to evaluate livestock transport and slaughter systems in
China.
Gender effects
The similarity of female and male responses to this survey (in which responses differed signifi-
cantly for only one issue: transporting livestock in open-sided vehicles thought to be more
acceptable by women) is consistent with a recent study in which males and females in China
had no difference in attitudes on animal welfare issues [52]. However, reviewing mainly West-
ern literature, Herzog [53] found females more sympathetic to animal welfare and less accept-
ing of animals’ suffering. In a cross-cultural study, it was found that only in countries with a
high Gender Empowerment Measure could women to express their concern for animals [54],
which is reported to be greater than that in men [53,55–59]. In China, the degree of gender
empowerment is high at 0.164, with a world ranking of 37
th
in the world [60], which suggests
that women would express greater concern. However, the Confucian belief that all animals
should be treated well may equally influence men and women [61], and the communist influ-
ence in the 20
th
C also encouraged equality between men and women [62]. Together these two
facts may explain why there was little difference seen in responses between men and women in
this study.
Limitations of the study
The benefits of virtual snowballing include the ability to collect data from a large number of
people rapidly and inexpensively, and false reporting may be reduced by the anonymity of this
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028 June 22, 2018 15 / 21
sampling technique [63,64]. In contrast, there is significant potential for selection bias with
this sampling technique and it is not possible to estimate response rates. It has, however, been
reported that internet surveys using this method give similar results to traditional sampling
methods and can make valuable contributions to research [64,65]. We acknowledge that the
respondents probably represented a well-educated and geographically limited sector of the
stakeholders in this industry. It was also clear that many people started the survey but did not
complete it, which may have been due to their eligibility as stakeholders, the time taken to
complete it, or their lack of interest in the subject matter. This is not uncommon in adaptive
conjoint analysis surveys, which require respondents to think carefully, but it suggests a bias,
that those that completed the survey were more likely to be those more interested in, and able
to provide, detailed evaluation of livestock welfare. There was evidence of this since well-edu-
cated respondents issued a higher utility value to stunning procedures, which may be due to
their being more aware of the welfare benefits these provide. An over-representation of well-
educated respondents is valuable for the survey since reliable answers are likely to be obtained,
but it does not necessarily represent the majority view. Less well-educated respondents may be
more likely to rely on intuition, which may favour more emotive issues such as avoiding caus-
ing pain to livestock.
The survey required stakeholders to have access to the internet, which only 52% of the Chi-
nese population has [66]. Since it is mainly the older generation and the rural poor that lack
access, it was expected that most stakeholders in this industry would have access, but it must
be acknowledged that some of those most regularly in contact with these rural industries did
not have access to, or regularly use, the internet.
Due to the unbalanced geographical distribution of respondents, with 76% of the respon-
dents from the South of China, the distribution is unlikely to represent the overall perspectives
of all Chinese people. People from different regions in China may have different attitudes
because of different levels of economic and social development [9]. In addition, the absence of
livestock slaughterers and veterinarians in the sample may have influenced the results, as peo-
ple in these roles have very specific and important functions and may have different percep-
tions of the importance of welfare issues in China. Similarly, less well-educated farmers and
those that are actively engaged in, rather than just organising, livestock transport, were not
adequately represented, and they may have had a different, more pragmatic view on welfare
problems during livestock transport and slaughter. However, the importance of welfare
enhancement is arguably restricted to the high value supply chains for livestock products.
There is generally much less opportunity for less well-educated farmers to obtain increased
prices for value-added products, such as welfare-enhanced livestock products, compared with
the larger scale suppliers to the major food chains, particularly if they are exporting their prod-
uct to the EU [67]. Nevertheless, it is important to obtain views from a widespread set of repre-
sentatives in the livestock sector. Future studies could use community-focused group meetings
to elicit responses directly from stakeholders that are hard to reach. These would need to pro-
vide incentives for participation, including veterinarians, as the benefit to them is not as obvi-
ous as, for example, teachers/researchers, who need to have a detailed understanding of how
the industry functions. Farmers are particularly hard to reach, especially as they are older than
city dwellers on average, with 55% over 40, or they are rural migrant workers, working both in
the cities and on their farms and expanding at about 4% per year [68]. In the latter case, much
of the daily agricultural management of the small plots allocated to rural dwellers is done by
older members of families. These would be very hard to reach in participatory research. At the
same time social science research could gather public opinion on the welfare concerns which
have been identified, and whether they would welcome animal products that come from high
welfare systems addressing these issues, even if they cost more [69]. The combination of
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028 June 22, 2018 16 / 21
providing information to the public on welfare issues and allowing them to express their opin-
ions is gathering momentum in solving animal welfare problems [69].
It is also possible that our initial focus group meeting failed to identify some of the biggest
problems, and therefore stakeholders were unable to select the ones that they believed to be
most important. Although water injecting was raised as a potential issue, but omitted because
it has been declared illegal in recent years, many Chinese researchers have recently reported it
as a current problem [48,70,71,72,73]. The extent of the practice is unknown but it has obvi-
ous welfare concerns. It was not investigated in this study due to it being an issue of great sen-
sitivity in China, its illegality and concerns about the influence this would have on potential
responses and the risk that such an investigation might pose for respondents. Future studies
should investigate the prevalence of this practice and stakeholder and public attitudes towards
it. It is also possible that some of our descriptions of the levels of each issue were potentially
leading, by describing attitudes as good or poor, for example, for which benign or malevolent
would have been more appropriate.
Conclusions
This study reports the perceived major welfare concerns for livestock during transport and
slaughter in China, as identified by a sample of stakeholders in the industry that rated issues
that had been proposed by a focus group. Although the stakeholders may not be entirely repre-
sentative of the industry, there was reasonable agreement on the most serious welfare issues.
Slaughter-related issues represented the major concerns, in common with previous surveys
addressing transport and slaughter in Asia. This may reflect an increased importance placed
on the critical moments of taking life, as compared to other potentially more chronic concerns.
Livestock transporters rated catching poultry manually in the dark as less acceptable and not
stunning pigs and poultry as more acceptable than many other stakeholder groups, demon-
strating some differences between stakeholder groups in the perception of welfare issues.
Future research should address key welfare issues identified here with a broader range of stake-
holders and examine the potential impacts of improvement of welfare on farmers in particular.
Supporting information
S1 Table. Australian version of the questionnaire.
(DOCX)
S2 Table. Chinese version of the questionnaire.
(DOCX)
S3 Table. Mean and standard deviations of the utility and importance values.
(DOCX)
Acknowledgments
This work was conducted as part of the ‘Animal Welfare Standards Project’ under the auspices
of the World Animal Health Organization (OIE).
Author Contributions
Conceptualization: Michelle Sinclair, Clive J. C. Phillips.
Data curation: Sarah Zito, Michelle Sinclair.
Formal analysis: Xiaofei Li, Sarah Zito.
Animal welfare during Chinese livestock transport and slaughter
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197028 June 22, 2018 17 / 21
Funding acquisition: Clive J. C. Phillips.
Methodology: Sarah Zito, Clive J. C. Phillips.
Project administration: Michelle Sinclair, Clive J. C. Phillips.
Software: Sarah Zito.
Supervision: Clive J. C. Phillips.
Writing – original draft: Xiaofei Li, Sarah Zito.
Writing – review & editing: Xiaofei Li, Sarah Zito, Michelle Sinclair, Clive J. C. Phillips.
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