Britain to Overhaul Animal Welfare Legislation
The New Zealand Herald www.nzherald.co.nz
July 7, 2004, LONDON -No more goldfishes given as prizes at fairs.
No more tail-docking of puppies for canine beauty contests.
No more 14-year-olds buying pets on a whim.
Those were just three of the proposed changes put forward on Wednesday in what the government is calling the most comprehensive overhaul of Britain's animal welfare legislation for nearly a century.
A new draft Animal Welfare Bill, which ministers hope will be included in this autumn's Queen's Speech, will replace a bundle of outdated legislation and update it for the 21st century.
It will consolidate and improve on more than 20 old animal protection laws, ranging from the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, through the Cockfighting Act, 1952, to the Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Act, 1999.
Some changes are eye-catching, obviously overdue, and welcome.
Giving animals as prizes - to recipients who may be quite unprepared for them - is to be outlawed, so the fairground goldfish in a plastic bag will be a thing of the past.
Cosmetic tail-docking of dogs will also be banned as cruel, although an exception may be made for working gundogs which spend their lives scrambling through undergrowth and rough pasture.
And children under 16 will no longer be allowed to buy pets from pet-shops unaccompanied.
Furthermore, welfare regulations are to be brought in governing the welfare of circus animals (which in Britain are becoming fewer and fewer.)
But the most substantial and important change the new law will bring in is an abstract one: to impose a formal duty of care on all animal keepers.
In future, if you have an animal you will be legally obliged to look after it properly.
That is a significant change. Under present legislation, harm has to be proved to have occurred before action can be taken: that means if you beat your dog black and blue you will (with luck) be prosecuted, but if you merely keep it chained up all day for weeks at a time in its own filth with inadequate food, water and shelter, there is not a thing anyone can do until the moment comes when physical suffering can actually be proved.
The new duty of care will act to prevent ill-treatment rather than punish those who ill-treat (although ill-treatment will still of course be punished), and it was warmly welcomed by the RSPCA.
"Getting this new welfare offence on the statute books has been the RSPCA's prime objective and will represent the single most important piece of legislation affecting captive and domestic animals since 1911, when the Protection of Animals Act became law," an RSPCA spokesman said.
