What does the Animal Welfare Act do?
It makes owners and keepers responsible for ensuring that the welfare needs of their animals are met. These include the need: • For a suitable environment (place to live) • For a suitable diet • To exhibit normal behaviour patterns • To be housed with, or apart from, other animals (if applicable) • To be protected from pain, injury, suffering and disease Anyone who is cruel to an animal, or does not provide for its welfare needs, may be banned from owning animals, fined up to £20,000 and/or sent to prison.
The Animal Welfare Act consolidates all previous animal welfare legislation and extends it to cover the welfare of animals in other industries such as livery stables, animal sanctuaries, greyhound racing and pet fairs. The Act will, for the first time, define what constitutes cruelty. The Act also provides powers to introduce secondary legislation and Codes of Practice to protect the welfare of non-farmed kept animals. The aim is to ensure that in future all domestic and captive animals will be protected by legislation that can be easily revised to take account of changing welfare needs and increased scientific knowledge. The proposals for the legislation include: extending the licensing regime to regulate animal keepers and places where animals are kept; introducing a ‘welfare offence’, setting up advisory bodies to advise on all aspects of animal welfare and bringing together data held by different law enforcement agencies by use of a “Animal Welfare Enforcement Database”. Animal Hea
