Calves shipped from Hawai'i to mainland in "cow-tainers" for up to a week

Compassion in World Farming is known the world over for its campaign to end the live export of animals on long and often grueling journeys overseas. With New Zealand having banned the practice in 2023 and the UK finally set to ban live exports in the coming weeks after 60 years of campaigning, other countries are reviewing their own live animal export business and assessing them against basic animal welfare.

In the United States, around half of our live animal exports end up in either Mexico or Canada, the two countries with which we share a land border. But there is a somewhat hidden trade in live animals from the islands of Hawai’i to the US mainland which is happening right under our noses.

Though most of the Hawai'i-born calves moved through the U.S. and Canadian west coast container ports almost under the windows of major animal advocacy groups, there appears to have never been an undercover investigation of the trade, never a protest, never a lawsuit, and never a mailing.

—Animal People Inc., October 2011