Defra's short-term accommodation guidance criticised
The report highlights inconsistancies in the guidance for temporarily housing snakes.
A new report from the Emergent Disease Foundation has found that guidance from the UK Government on short-term accommodation for animals is inconsistent and not based on any scientific rationale.
In contrast to scientific literature, which generally defines ‘short-term’ accommodation as a period of between a few hours and a few days, the definitions of ‘short-term’ in husbandry guidance from Defra can range from less than a day to three months.
Published in the journal Animals, the report criticises rules which allow pet shops in England to house animals in lower standard short-term accommodation for up to three months. In comparison, the Welsh government is praised for adopting guidance which limits it to seven days, although the researchers claim that is also too long.
Instead, the authors argue that to improve animal welfare, short-term housing should always be used for less than 24 hours.
The report also highlighted inconsistencies in guidance given by Defra to different sectors. For example, pet shops are allowed to keep and sell snakes in accommodation in which they cannot fully stretch their bodies. In contrast, snakes kept for mobile exhibitions must be able to fully stretch, even when housed in temporary accommodation.
In total, the report makes six recommendations:
• The stipulations for short-term, temporary, transitional, or other similarly intended conditions should infer periods of less than a single circadian cycle (typically <24 hrs)
• All animals at all facilities should be subject to the single circadian cycle as a principle for determining maximum short-term, temporary, or other transitional conditions
• All animals at all facilities must be accommodated in higher or other similarly recognised conditions consistent with long-term husbandry and best practices wherever confinement persists beyond the single circadian principle
• Best practice examples of short-term, temporary, or other transitional conditions should include higher standards of husbandry
• Keeping animals in short-term, lower standard conditions should be minimised and only for recorded and essential reasons
• All animals at all facilities should be subject to government mandatory identification and registration on arrival and departure in order to accurately record their period.
Dr Rachel Grant, one of the co-authors of the report, said: “A consistent definition of short-term with respect to animal housing is long overdue. At present the guidelines appear to be arbitrary and not based on welfare science.
"Our findings, that the definition of short-term should be less than one circadian cycle, will help bring consistency to what is currently a poorly defined area of animal husbandry, and thus improve the welfare of animals housed in temporary facilities."
Defra has published guidance for the vet sector ahead of a proposed UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.
