October 16, 2025
Cattle tracking violations in the UK raise risk of major disease outbreak
What happens when 140,000 cows go unaccounted for? It might sound absurd, but the situation poses serious threats to the UK farming industry and significant risks to public health.
Last month, an outbreak of the bluetongue virus at cattle farms in Wales sparked alarm and put the issue of livestock traceability back in the spotlight. Animal health officials moved swiftly to lock down the affected farms and put movement restrictions in place.
The episode may have brought to mind the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that ravaged the UK countryside in 2001. In attempts to contain that disease, more than 6 million farm animals were slaughtered and their carcasses burned or buried. In the end, the episode cost the UK economy over £8 billion (US$10.68 billion).
One reason the virus spread so quickly was because of the widespread movement of diseased animals – with livestock often being sent for trading at markets or to slaughter. The crisis prompted calls for the government to develop a more comprehensive livestock tracing system.
Twenty-five years on, and with animal diseases once again back in the headlines, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) can reveal that traceability regulations introduced in the wake of that outbreak were violated thousands of times in the last decade.
Between 2014 and 2023, UK farms failed to properly record the movements of vast numbers of livestock, meaning they eluded tracking systems. They also failed to report thousands of deaths within the required timeframes – or at all – risking potentially fatal diseases going undetected.
The TBIJ analysis found that farms breached identification and traceability rules in incidents involving nearly 165,000 farm animals over a 10-year period, including almost 140,000 cattle.
The team have also uncovered hundreds of cases where animal carcasses and byproducts were not properly disposed of. In some instances they were dumped illegally or left to rot in fields, which can contaminate other farm animals, water sources and wildlife.
The findings come amid increasing concern about the UK's ability to prevent the spread of pathogens, following a recent National Audit Office (NAO) report that found the government was underprepared for a major disease event such as foot-and-mouth.
Professor Hugh Pennington of Aberdeen University, who led two government enquiries into outbreaks of E. coli linked to contaminated meat, said the findings showed the current tracing systems to be "very inadequate". He added: "Foot-and-mouth disease remains something to worry about because of its economic impact. Viruses evolve in real time and surveillance is key if we want to avoid having nasty surprises."
Erik Millstone, Emeritus Professor of Science Policy at the University of Sussex, said he was appalled by the breaches identified in this investigation. "Traceability is so important when a disease is infectious and where it is crucial to trace other animals that may be affected," he said. "They found this during foot-and-mouth [in 2001] when officials couldn't get ahead of the disease spread and had to stop all livestock movements."
Responding to the findings, Baroness Hayman, the UK minister in charge of biosecurity, said however that the government's commitment to maintaining it in the face of the mounting risks of disease was "unwavering".
"We took immediate action to ban personal imports of meat and dairy from Europe after a wave of foot-and-mouth cases on the continent [earlier in 2025] and, after years of underinvestment, we are investing £200 million (US$267.05 million) into a new National Biosecurity Centre."
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) also highlighted changes announced earlier this year to cattle identification, registration and reporting rules in England, which it said "would strengthen the UK's ability to prevent, detect, and respond to animal disease outbreaks".
A new cattle movement reporting system, due to come into effect in summer 2026, will be easier to use for farmers, markets, abattoirs and regulators, Defra said.
One of the most common infractions found was the failure to report when cows or sheep had been moved, or reporting it too late. Another common issue was the failure to notify authorities when animals died, or to do so on time. In other cases, movement details were submitted incorrectly.
The importance of rapid traceability was underscored by a salmonella outbreak connected to UK sheep and lamb which began in 2017 and persisted for more than five years. More than 300 people in England, Scotland and Wales fell ill as a result of contaminated meat, and at least one died.
Two farms were placed under movement restrictions and the salmonella strain was found to have contaminated other farms, pets, wild birds, river water and 12 abattoirs. But the authorities struggled to pinpoint the source of the disease and industry bodies admitted that the case "highlighted the importance of work […] to improve traceability".
Gianluigi Rossi, a disease ecologist and epidemiologist at the UK's EPIC Centre of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks, told TBIJ that accurate animal movement data is essential for preventing disease outbreaks in livestock.
Having this data "allows new cases to be rapidly identified, limiting further spread and protecting farmers' livelihoods", he said.
Tom Bradshaw, President of the National Farmers Union, told TBIJ: "No farmer wants diseases to spread. Farmers have long memories and we're still haunted by foot-and-mouth outbreaks in the 2000s. We firmly believe in robust biosecurity measures, whether that's on-farm or at the border, and will continue to do what we can to minimise the risk of disease."
He said that the UK has some of the most stringent traceability rules in the world, but it needs to move to a fully digital system for tracking animal movements to avoid the mistakes and delays that the current system is prone to. He added that the NFU is working closely with the government to help deliver it.
Industry sources told TBIJ that the tracking violations we identified represented just a fraction of the overall number of movements that take place annually, which can hit around 40 million for cattle and sheep. They added that the bluetongue virus is largely spread by midges.
The NAO report, published in June, found that the UK government "lacks a comprehensive livestock movement tracing system". It noted that data for different animals, and for each of the UK's four nations, are recorded on separate systems – some of which are outdated and unreliable.
In response to the growing concerns, the British Meat Processors Association, an industry body, earlier this year called for new regulations to upend the current system, which records movements between farms, livestock auctions and slaughterhouses after they take place.
The group said: "Licences [need] to be applied for in advance. Without that, the UK has no ability to lock down animal movements the minute a notifiable disease is discovered."
We also found a raft of related biosecurity violations that risk the spread of disease. Records submitted by local authorities to APHA detail more than 300 prosecutions in England and Wales from 2012-2023 relating to the mishandling of carcasses and animal parts.
Among the cases highlighted in the records was a farm in Cumbria that dumped numerous sheep carcasses in outdoor waste heaps next to farm buildings. Animal health officers subsequently found that the farmer responsible had not reported the deaths in a timely manner, as well as having broken animal movement regulations.
In Gwynedd, north-west Wales, a farmer was investigated for not disposing of dead sheep correctly after carcasses and skeletons were found strewn across a hillside. Officials also found the farmer had not recorded animal movements, and noted that cows on the farm were kept in squalid conditions, some caked in mud and waste.
Following a tip-off, TBIJ visited a farm in Devon and found sheep carcasses dumped in a heap with agricultural and household waste, just yards from a footpath. Images captured at the site show fleeces, hooves and bones protruding from the stinking pile. On a later visit, it was clear someone had set fire to the heap.
The burning and burying of dead farm animals are both banned. Burial risks spreading disease through the soil or groundwater, while cremation can release pathogens into the air. Animal health inspectors say that where an animal has been disposed of illegally, it is rare that its death has been reported.
Industry sources told us that farmers would not be responsible for all reports of improper disposal of carcasses, and that poaching and illegal slaughter were factors.
These risks are not confined to the UK. The NAO report also expressed concern that just 5% of imported livestock goes through biosecurity checks on its way into the UK. Foot-and-mouth, bluetongue virus, African swine fever and salmonella are all circulating in Europe, while climate change and antibiotic resistance make outbreaks of disease increasingly common.
The NFU said it has been calling on the government to invest in biosecurity at our borders now to prevent costly and hugely damaging disease outbreaks in the future.
Unchecked movements of animals to the UK from abroad also risk the introduction and spread of diseases resistant to antibiotics, according to campaigners.
Cóilín Nunan, science and policy manager at the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics, a campaign coalition, said current border checks on farm animals are "woefully inadequate". He believes these led to an antibiotic-resistant variant of MRSA that affects livestock spreading from Europe to the UK.
"The UK used to be free of this superbug, which can cause serious infections in humans, but it is now present in British livestock," he said.
"If we want to prevent new superbugs arriving in the UK, we need much more comprehensive health checks at borders."
- The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
