A new independent scientific report has resulted in calls for an EU-wide ban on exotic pet markets to protect animal welfare, public health and biodiversity. The report, commissioned by the Animal Protection Agency, International Animal Rescue, Eurogroup for Animals and other European animal protection groups, was presented earlier this month to Caroline Lucas MP and Keith Taylor MEP.

Scientists investigated amphibian and reptile markets across Europe and carried out onsite inspections of key events in the UK, Germany and Spain. Stress-related behaviours were commonly observed in the animals and the report described the conditions and treatment of the vast majority of amphibians and reptiles as ‘tantamount to animal abuse’. It was noted that veterinarians charged with inspecting the animals had failed to identify systematic welfare problems.

The report also highlighted the health risks to attendees. Reptiles and amphibians typically carry germs that contaminate their general environment and, within a short period of time, probably spread to humans with a potential of causing infections. Also, of concern was the risk involved in subsequently hiring out venues contaminated by reptile and amphibian events for a variety other purposes, including activities involving children.

Another important finding of the study was that these markets provide a key route for exotic amphibians and reptiles (captive-bred, as well as wild-caught) to spread throughout the EU and impact on local ecosystems - at great cost to EU economies.

The report will be presented to the European Commission, which is currently considering measures to address Invasive Alien Species.

A summary of the report can be found here

To see the full report, click here

At the Environment Committee on 8 May, MEPs adopted the draft opinion prepared by Kartika Liotard MEP on the protection of animals during transport. The main features of the draft opinion include the reduction in time of transport of animals, an overall improvement of the conditions during transport, mandatory trainings for drivers and an increase of the minimum space allowances for pregnant and wounded animals.

This vote sends a clear message to the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture which leads the debate on this matter that there is a strong will among a majority of MEPs to reduce animal transport wherever possible and to significantly improve the welfare conditions of animals during transport.

On the same topic, the Committee on Transport and Tourism also adopted a draft opinion prepared by Luis de Grandes Pascual MEP. The opinion sends also a clear message to the lead Committee on Agriculture that even a Committee dedicated to transport policy is in favour of limiting the transport of animals over long journey as much as possible.

The Committee also expressed regrets over the fact that a better use of navigation technologies which would assist the enforcement of the legislation in this matter and reduce costs in the long run has not been highlighted.

Lastly, during an exchange of views at the last Agriculture Committee, European Commissioner for Health and Consumers John Dalli expressed his doubts over the enforceability of an overall 8 hours journey limit for animals adding that it would lack scientific justification. His position was backed by several MEPs.

The next developments on the issue will are likely to take place during the next Committee on Agriculture in June at the European Parliament.

Since December 2011 multiple meetings have taken place with the European Commission, with Member States, with all stakeholders involved and with the Turkish authorities regarding live export to Turkey. All these meeting recognized the need for a better enforcement of the existing rule in EU countries and for improvement in equipments and procedures at the Turkish border. Efforts were promised from all stakeholders involved.

Unfortunately the latest investigations carried out by animal welfare organisation Animal’s Angels in April show that very little progress has been made and the situation is still appalling for the transported animals: deficient vet checks at departure in Estonia, extremely long delay (9 days) for a transport between Estonia and Turkey, insufficient room and water supply, insufficient bedding, repeated breaches of the Regulation by a Polish transporter left not enforced and approval of unrealistic journey logs.

Other deficiencies were noted, such as unsatisfactory vet checks at the Bulgarian border, staff not properly trained, no contingency plan avaialble, insufficient internal height especially for cattle were also noted.

To see the report, click here

The European Food Safety Authority published an interesting recommendation based on the latest scientific evidence on exposing the major welfare problems of cattle kept for beef production and the welfare in intensive calf farming systems. These include diseases linked to overcrowding, digestive disorders, injuries due to slatted concrete floors, painful mutilations such as castration and dehorning.

This well-documented report covers a large range of aspects of beef cattle farming and is an additional reason why new legislation must be enacted to close the many loopholes in this area and ensure proper welfare standards for beef cattle and calves accross the EU.

The document can be found here

Religious slaughter without stunning must remain an exemption

The Swedish delegation presented to the Council a note on the enforcement of the general requirement to stun animals before slaughter and suggests that the slaughtering of animals in the EU is limited to religious customers only. The issue was raised during the May Agriculture and Fisheries Council Meeting in Brussels.

According to EU legislation, animals shall only be killed after being stunned, except for religious reasons when Member States allow it. Recently, the European Commission acknowledged an abnormal use of this derogation in some Member States resulting in most animals being killed without stunning. For that reason, Sweden took the opportunity to raise this extremely concerning issue and calls on the European Commission to put the excessive use of slaughter without stunning at a higher priority.

Sweden also suggests the development of guidelines for best practice based on scientific evidence. In addition, the European Commission is expected to publish a report on labelling in 2013. Sweden recognises that labelling could help consumers identify the meat coming from animals killed without stunning and for whom concerns have been significantly growing in that regard lately.

To read the note, click here

The latest official data on laying hens from the European Commission were revealed during a recent meeting of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee at the UK Parliament, which had the situation of the UK egg industry on its agenda.

The current figures show that on the 326 million laying hens in the EU, 14.9% are still kept in conventional cages, i.e. 48 million.

On the 13 non-compliant Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, The Netherlands), 12 had responded in March to the letter of formal notice sent at the end on 26 January. According to the responses that were received, all Member States should be compliant on 1 August 2012 with the exception of Italy, for which the current situation remains unclear.

Eurogroup will be closely monitoring the situation within the next months.

The Intergroup for Animal Welfare and Conservation during its last session in Strasbourg discussed the issue of animal testing and expressed their extreme concern that new legislative proposals continue to promote animal testing.

The Intergroup calls for a comprehensive EU strategy to be included in the 7th Environment Action Programme to ensure the number of animals used will decrease and ultimately be fully replaced by alternatives.  As part of such a strategy any impact assessment prepared by the Commission should consider the effect on the number of animals used as a result of introducing a new policy. This would avoid the situation where new policies, such as on cloning for food, GMO testing, nanotechnology would increase animal use.

"The Commission must act now and rapidly develop a clear strategy to reduce animal testing. This should be based on the position outlined in our Report on the 7th Environmental Action programme,” commented Daciana Sârbu MEP.

“We are also extremely alarmed that the Commission is still considering whether to allow derogations under the Cosmetics Directive to allow continued animal testing. There are more enough ingredients available that have already been tested and approved today without allowing further animal suffering to develop more,” she added.

The European Commission is drafting its proposals for the future EAP and carrying out an impact assessment, as part of which a public consultation is currently on-going.

Within the framework of this process, the European Parliament has adopted a report on 20 April 2012, calling for better implementation with the Council of existing EU environmental legislation, integration of environment policy in all other EU policy areas and improved coherence among policies, as well as more attention to be given to the international dimension.

With regard to animal welfare, the Parliament agrees that friendly methods of production have to be used when looking at sustainable production and consumption, they also agree that there is a need to reduce the number of animals used for safety testing of chemicals and other products.

While the European Commission is expected to publish its proposals by the end of the year, the European Parliament and the Council will give their opinion and adopt the legislation.

Eurogroup made a contribution to the Commission’s public consultation. More information about Eurogroup’s position can be found here

In November 2011, the European Commission concluded an ambitious Free Trade Agreement with India while acknowledging important outstanding issues. For that reason, the EU president and its Indian counterpart decided to postpone the final signature of the final act.

Concerned by the difficulty of India to take into account non trade concerns, Mrs Sirpa Pietikäinen and currently Member of the European Parliament- a question related to animal welfare and India.

The answer is demonstrating the difficulty for India to accept non trade matters in the current negotiations. Even if the inclusion of a chapter on sustainable development in the EU-India Free Trade Agreement is an EU objective, it remains difficult for India to accept it. On Animal Welfare, the European Commission is proposing provisions on cooperation, arguing the need to raise “awareness on animal welfare and internationally recognised animal welfare standards”.

For more details, click here

The European Citizens’ Initiative for an EU Directive on dairy cow welfare has finally been given approval by the European Commission to collect 1 million signatures from European citizens’ accross the continent until the 9 May 2013 deadline.

This initiative, which seeks to improve the welfare of dairy cows in the EU receives support from ice cream maker Ben and Jerry’s and two of Eurogroup’s Member Organisations, CIWF and WSPA.

For more information on the initiative, go to http://www.happycows.eu and here

While the European Commission organised the annual Green Week Conference, whose main topic this year was water, International Member Organisations Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) and World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) have released a new report which seeks to understand the water footprint of livestock farming. The aim was to assess whether a range of farming systems, with differing animal welfare, use water differently.

Among its main findings the research shows that meat production is very water intensive as 1/4 of the global freshwater used worldwide relates to meat and dairy production and that 43 times more irrigation water is used for grain-based animal feeds than pasture-based animal feeds.

The study also suggests that grass-based farming may be preferable to intensive farming from a water resources point of view and that a reduction in meat consumption and food waste would reduce the water impact of our diet.

To read the full report, click here