petition to government about exotic keeping result

[sharpstrain]

Just recieved this response to a petition regarding keeping exotics - good news I think



We received a petition asking:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to support private exotic captive care keepers.”
Details of Petition:
“Captive care keepers in the United Kingdom believe that they have the right to maintain exotic animal species within their collections. Many oppose the keeping of animals, many more oppose the keeping of exotic species, be these, mammal, primate, avian, reptile, aquatic or invertebrate. With increased legislation under the new animal welfare act such as codes of practice, enforcement, education, regulation, communication and awareness there should be no genuine reasons for the government to encourage the opposition to continue their campaigns to cease this. Responsible ownership and husbandry, promotion of both keepers and animals rights also feature very heavily upon the minds of those that do keep animals privately. All keepers therefore call for support from the government rather than condemnation.”

· Read the petition
· Petitions homepage
Read the Government’s response

The Government believes it is right for people to own and keep animals provided they can meet the animals’ welfare needs. Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (the “2006 Act”) it is an offence for an owner or keeper of a vertebrate animal to cause it unnecessary suffering or neglect its welfare needs. The 2006 Act introduced a “welfare offence” which means that owners and keepers must provide for the welfare needs of their animals (commonly known as the five freedoms: suitable environment, suitable diet, ability to exhibit normal behaviour patterns, house with or apart from other animals, and protection from pain, suffering, injury and disease). Those that break this law can be fined up to £20,000 or sent to prison. Powers are provided to enforcers to investigate complaints of poor welfare.
Vigorous law is therefore in place to protect captive animals and any new secondary legislation under the 2006 Act to ban or restrict the keeping of certain animals could only be justified if there is robust, peer reviewed and scientifically proven evidence that their welfare is being compromised and the protection provided by the 2006 Act is inadequate. We are not aware of any such evidence with regard to the keeping of primates.

[laura1486]

In my opinion, reading this response is all well and good, until you reach the end where the whole response seems geared towards the keeping of primates. Nicely avoiding the issues relating to pettitions about the keeping of reptiles and the other exotic species.

In effect, they state that evidence providing the governement with reason to curtail the keeping of primates, does not exist. Does this raise the question as to whether or not such evidence exists regards the keeping of reptiles and other exotics?

That is what i found myself asking.

It would seem that, going by this response, the keeping of exotics rests on the scientists findings that research into whether, even given all the protection in the '2006 Act', the welfare of these creatures is as protected as it could be.

[peaches]

What a load of crap! Another load of words that basically says if we want to change it at some point we will......well no surprise there then!

Well that was how I understood this sentence.

to ban or restrict the keeping of certain animals could only be justified if there is robust, peer reviewed and scientifically proven evidence that their welfare is being compromised and the protection provided by the 2006 Act is inadequate

[Fixx]

Originally Posted by peaches

What a load of crap! Another load of words that basically says if we want to change it at some point we will......well no surprise there then!

Well that was how I understood this sentence.

to ban or restrict the keeping of certain animals could only be justified if there is robust, peer reviewed and scientifically proven evidence that their welfare is being compromised and the protection provided by the 2006 Act is inadequate

That's fair enough in my view Peaches...if there was "robust, peer reviewed and scientifically proven evidence that their welfare is being compromised and the protection provided by the 2006 Act is inadequate", then they would be right to change the legislation. If a robust enough argument could be brought that any captive keeping of any animal (I'm a firm believer Orcas and Dolphins should not be kept in aquaria) is detrimental to the animal in questions health or well being then I'd consider supporting an amendment to prevent them being kept.

Originally Posted by sharpstrain

Vigorous law is therefore in place to protect captive animals and any new secondary legislation under the 2006 Act to ban or restrict the keeping of certain animals could only be justified if there is robust, peer reviewed and scientifically proven evidence that their welfare is being compromised and the protection provided by the 2006 Act is inadequate. We are not aware of any such evidence with regard to the keeping of primates.

This is the bit I find interesting. I read this as the Government have no plans to 'toughen' up or 'ban' the private keeping of primates, beyond the blanket coverage of the 2006 Animal Welfare Act at the moment, contrary to what some people say.

[dragonbreeder]

i got that too:
the email headed:
"government response.."
i near sh*t myself! haha
thought the government were out to get me.
i did notice it was worded all nicely nicely - but basically they said "we'll change it if and when we wish to" heh

[sami]

I signed 3 petitions along these lines, and the response was exactly the same on all 3...

One of them was about primate keeping, so I think they've typed them response to the primate one, then copied and pasted, and not bothered to change the bottom part...

[Jade01]

Originally Posted by dragonbreeder

i got that too:
the email headed:
"government response.."
i near sh*t myself! haha
thought the government were out to get me.
i did notice it was worded all nicely nicely - but basically they said "we'll change it if and when we wish to" heh

haha yeah me 2!

[peaches]

Originally Posted by Fixx

That's fair enough in my view Peaches...if there was "robust, peer reviewed and scientifically proven evidence that their welfare is being compromised and the protection provided by the 2006 Act is inadequate", then they would be right to change the legislation. If a robust enough argument could be brought that any captive keeping of any animal (I'm a firm believer Orcas and Dolphins should not be kept in aquaria) is detrimental to the animal in questions health or well being then I'd consider supporting an amendment to prevent them being kept.

Yeah maybe I guess I'm just doubtful that any further investigation will be ....umm ......I think 'unbiased' is the word I'm looking for, I'm always a bit dubious about experts that the goverment seem to use. Where they dig then up from, so to speak.



That if certain organisations were against something then they would only need to bang on enough about it to get it changed. No matter what the laws are.

[essexchondro]

I'm happy with the governments response. They clearly see it as our right to keep animals, the only caveat to that is that we treat them properly. So basically the ball is in our court; we don't have to prove that keeping exotics is ok, the anti's have to prove that it isn't ok...and given that the government would be looking for "robust, peer reviewed and scientifically proven evidence" from the anti's I doubt that we've got too much to worry about. Their arguments have, so far, fallen a long way short of those criteria.

[Akua_Ko_Nalu]

Originally Posted by essexchondro

I'm happy with the governments response. They clearly see it as our right to keep animals, the only caveat to that is that we treat them properly. So basically the ball is in our court; we don't have to prove that keeping exotics is ok, the anti's have to prove that it isn't ok...and given that the government would be looking for "robust, peer reviewed and scientifically proven evidence" from the anti's I doubt that we've got too much to worry about. Their arguments have, so far, fallen a long way short of those criteria.

That was my take on the response also.