Looking after wildlife and improving the lives of farm animals and pets are the related but distinct aims of the government’s new animal welfare strategy for England. Its launch is timely: more than 1 billion chickens and around 8 million turkeys are reared each year – with many of the latter slaughtered in the run-up to Christmas. Winter is also peak season for pet abandonments, with animal charities particularly fearful this year, given the already high numbers of dogs and cats being dumped.
Pledges to end the use of cages for laying hens, and cramped farrowing crates for pigs, will be welcomed by all who object to animal cruelty. So will a proposal to replace the carbon dioxide stunning of pigs with an alternative that is less distressing for them. New rules for farmed fish are also on the way. Until now, fish have been largely excluded from the evolving set of regulations aimed at minimising suffering at the point of slaughter.
Most European countries already protect breeding hares from hunters by making it illegal to kill these beautiful animals during the months when they rear their young. The announcement of a similar measure for England is overdue. As the Conservative former environment secretary George Eustice told the Guardian, “even the Victorians recognised the need for a close season” when shooting hares is banned.
Pledges to ban snare traps and trail hunting – where hounds chase a scent rather than a fox – were in Labour’s manifesto. Trail hunting is already banned in Scotland, and its continuation in England was a compromise when foxhunting was outlawed. Ministers will need to tread carefully if they want to avoid another row with countryside organisations and their allies – following the U-turn this week on inheritance tax, which will now apply to farms worth £2.5m rather than £1m. Rightly, the strategy acknowledges the potential for adverse impacts on farmers from higher welfare standards. It pledges that trade policy will be used to protect them if lower-welfare imports gain an “unfair advantage”.
When it comes to pets, it is the interests of owners that need to be balanced with animal welfare. With an estimated 10.6 million dogs across the UK, the renters’ rights bill includes a provision that ought to make it easier for private tenants in England to keep pets. But the pet boom has brought problems too. A new registration scheme for dog breeders aimed at stamping out maltreatment, and a review of international rescue schemes, are sensible steps. But enforcement will be needed to back any changes up. Unless councils and other bodies are equipped for inspections and investigations, animals will continue to suffer.
As ministers know, animal welfare is popular with the public. Trickier issues such as the damage to wildlife caused by dogs and cats, carbon emissions from intensive livestock farming and the need to reduce overall meat consumption are ducked in a strategy that focuses on the recognition of animals as sentient beings. There is a great deal here that is subject to consultation and may take years to come into force. The other UK nations are already ahead in some regards. Electric shock collars for cats and dogs, for example, were banned in Wales in 2010. But ministers are right to highlight the issues. Animals should be treated with compassion, not cruelty. In a world that is changing rapidly for them as well as for humans, the law needs to keep up.
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