Obligatory registration of domestic animals can be introduced in Ukraine

In Ukraine, it was proposed to introduce the obligatory registration and identification of domestic animals of January 1, 2021, in addition to the already existing procedure for registration of livestock. The bill №9022 with the corresponding initiative in the Verkhovna Rada was registered by deputies Oleksandr Bakumenko, Petro Yurchyshyn, Mykola Kucher and Serhii Labaziuk.

The norms of the document oblige the owners of cats and dogs, as well as wild animals kept in captivity, to issue veterinary passports to animals in order to be able to identify the animal in the future. Now, according to the current law "On Registration and Identification of Animals", cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and horses are subject to obligatory registration.

If the parliament approves the bill, its authors expect that the Unified State Register of Animals will be created in the country, which will be administrated by one of the departments of the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, the co-author of the document, Petro Yurchyshyn, explained to the publication. The registration process involves entering in the register data of the animal, its owner or farm, transfering, death. And identification involves the assignment to the animal of a unique number, under which it will appear in the database. You can register your pet in a veterinary clinic. After chipping a special number will be recorded in a veterinary passport and entered in the register. When changing the place of residence, the owner will be obliged to place his animal on veterinary records. But the identification number will not change, Petro Yurchyshyn explained to the publication.

The explanatory note to the document states that the new rules are established to bring Ukrainian legislation in the sphere of animal management in line with the European Convention for the Protection of Pets, which Ukraine ratified in 2013. States that have signed the convention undertake to consider the possibility of identifying dogs and cats by special methods, as well as keep a register of animal numbers along with the names and addresses of their owners. In the European Union, obligatory registration and chipping, as well as issuing a veterinary passport, have been introduced since 2004 for all owners of cats and dogs.

The co-author of the bill, Oleksandr Bakumenko, explains the necessity of obligatory registration of domestic animals by the fact that its introduction will create a system for recording and controlling the movement of cats and dogs. This will help to avoid the spread of common for human and animal diseases, for example, rabies. "Registration will make it possible to transport a pet to the European Union," explains Petro Yurchyshyn to RBC-Ukraine. - You need its identification number, without which you can not take the animal abroad. Secondly, stray dogs should also be sterilized and chipped." The deputy also specified that the registration would help the victims of the attack dogs to determine the owner of the animal. "For example, if a dog bites you, you can identify the owner by the chip and then sue them. Or if your pet escapes, it will be easier to find it," assures Petro Yurchyshyn. The bill notes that services for registration and identification of animals will be paid. To enter in the register of pets and cattle the authorized agency will be at the expense of their owners - physical and legal persons. Free to register your pet can veterans of war, people with I and II disability groups and low-income families. In the document the cost of these services is not specified, but according to Petro Yurchyshyn’s calculations, registration costs about 34 UAH for a pet. In addition, at the request of the owner, these funds can be returned if a compensation mechanism is developed.

For not providing data on pets or the lack of their registration, owners are asked to bring to administrative responsibility. Currently, fines for similar offenses are stipulated in art. 107-2 of the Code of Administrative Violations for owners of cattle, pigs, sheep, horses. If the bill is adopted, these sanctions will apply to owners of domestic animals. Also, the authors of the document suggest increasing the fines from 51-435 UAH (depending on the degree of the offense) to 85-850 UAH.

In the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, RBC-Ukraine explained that the assignment to cats and dogs of a unique identification number will reliably determine their owners, quickly find lost pets, and solve the problems of stray animals. However, it is impossible to establish the exact number of cats and dogs in the country, including stray animals. Due to the absence of a single register, neither local nor state authorities have accurate statistics. According to the Washington Post, Ukraine is in the top ten countries by the number of pets. And the approximate calculations of international experts, according to the information of the Worldatlas portal, indicate that last year in Ukraine there were about 7.5 million cats, including stray animals.

"There is no exact number of domestic animals in the country, and the data from different sources vary widely, but it is not difficult to guess that the number of stray dogs and cats in the country amounts to tens of thousands. In Kyiv, for example, animal activists and communal utilities talk about the order of numbers from 3 thousand to 20 thousand stray animals," - said RBC-Ukraine head of PR-department of the charitable organization Happy Paw Oleh Mulskyi. The vice-president of the Association of Zooists of Ukraine Zoia Savchenko specified that in the country have less than one percent of dogs and cats with veterinary passports.

According to Oleh Mulskyi, registration will give an opportunity to control, and "can also be a good incentive for creating the appropriate infrastructure in large cities - for walking animals, special containers for harvesting." "An important factor is also that a registered animal is officially assigned to its owner and address of residence, which will motivate people to be more responsible and can at least partially protect themselves from situations when the owners simply leave their animals on the street," says Oleh Mulskyi.

However, it is still unclear whether the introduction of ubiquitous registration of cats and dogs will contribute to a large-scale campaign to sterilize stray animals. Animal activists have explained RBC-Ukraine that this is now being done by municipalities, but mostly by volunteers and European charitable organizations. "In Odesa, the Germans have been sterilizing for ten years, the relevant municipal utilities are engaged in this at the expense of the city budget, in some cities it is carried out by Austrian organizations, while in Kharkiv, communal workers do not sterilize. They kill stray animals," says Zoia Savchenko. In her opinion, the adoption of a draft law on compulsory registration of domestic animals by the parliament is unlikely to significantly change the situation. "The adoption of such a law will not be effective for animals, and no one will do anything to the owner if he does not register his animal." The registration can not be imposed forcibly," believes animal activist.

However, this is far from the first attempt of parliamentarians to introduce a comprehensive record of domestic and stray animals. In March, a similar bill No. 7220 was registered by the group of people's deputies in the parliament. This document also proposed to introduce compulsory registration of animals, for which an administrative fee of up to 160 UAH would be introduced, and mandatory sterilization of stray cats and dogs. In addition, the project provided for fines for illegal trade in animals. But this document was rejected because of the need to refine it.

Agricultural accounting

In addition to settling the registration of pet animals, the authors of bill No.9022 also propose to specify the procedure for recording agricultural and wild animals kept in captivity. Their owners will have to enter in the register data on the population of livestock, its movement, sale, slaughter, case and conducted sanitary-veterinary measures. The administrator of the unified database will have to enter into the register, within 10 working days, the received data from the owners of cattle, pigs, goats, sheep and 25 days - horses. Another five days the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection will be required for registration of identification documents. Thus, farmers and owners of zoos will take care of the registration of animals from two weeks to a month. In this case, if necessary, the owners of livestock will be free to receive the necessary extracts from the register, and he must be available for use online. Information about the personal data of animal owners will remain private.

It is assumed that, based on the data of the single register, the veterinary inspectors will be able to monitor the compliance of information provided by the owners of animals. They will have to check the number of animals in a particular farm, the availability of their identification numbers. Inspections can be conducted in case of threats to public health or animal health. The inspectors will also analyze the causes of previous outbreaks of cattle diseases.

Costs for the creation of a single register, the purchase of animal identification and chipping tools are proposed foreseen in the state budget. The explanatory note to bill No.9022 states that according to the cattle, pigs, goats, sheep and horses calculated for 2018, about 173 million UAH will be needed to register and identify animals.

At the same time, the document suggests toughen penalties for violating the law on the registration of farm animals. For stock breeders, for violations of the requirements for animal identification, a fine in the amount of six to eight minimum wages for legal entities is threatened, and for individuals - entrepreneurs - in the amount of two to four minimum salaries (M3 - 3,723 UAH) with restriction of movement of all animals farm to the moment of elimination of the specified discrepancy.

In the the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, RBC Ukraine was assured that the adoption of the bill and the implementation of its norms would provide Ukrainians with food safety products of animal origin safe for health and monitor the situation with the incidence of animals in the country. Today, among the global threats in Ukraine, the Service names the African swine fever and rabies.

Proper identification and registration of animals makes it possible to control the implementation of vaccinations, treatments, studies for each animal and its health status, if it detects a sick animal, it will quickly be isolated. In case of detection of especially dangerous animal diseases, as well as diseases common to humans and animals, the law will ensure the implementation of appropriate measures to prevent the spread of the disease to other animals.

The head of the Ukrainian Stock Breeders Association, Iryna Palamar, told RBC-Ukraine that the main need for legislative changes is that the current system for identification and registration of farm animals is practically not working.

She said that the system of identification and registration of agricultural animals should work in the country in such a way that each animal and its movement could not be traced, to control the epizootic situation in the country, and ultimately the consumer can be confident in the quality and safety of food.

According to Palamar, animal owners should be aware of their responsibility for violating the requirements of identification and registration, but at the same time, the mechanism for obtaining state reimbursement for the identification of animals should be simplified for them. "It is especially important for the identification system of the cattle to motivate single-family households, which contain more than half of the total livestock, to identify these animals. Now they are not interested in identifying animals due to the fact that they will lose subsidies for housing and communal services. The Association repeatedly submitted to the government its proposals on changes," explains the expert.