Examination of Witnesses (Questions 172-188)
MR CLIFFORD
WARWICK, DR
ROGER MUGFORD,
MS ELAINE
TOLAND AND
MR GREG
GLENDELL
7 SEPTEMBER 2004
Q180 Joan Ruddock: I think you have made
quite a sound case but I find it difficult to understand why some
of the problems that have been described do not equally apply
to exhibitions, particularly the cases of airborne diseases from
birds and people eating fruit at an exhibition which would be
identical. It is not to do with the sale. The conditions of bringing
lots of animals together and lots of public together milling about
in a leisurely way is hazardous potentially, from what you are
all saying.
Mr Glendell: I do not have a problem
with this at all. With the exhibitions a lot of the pet birds
have a personal relationship with the person who is their main
carer and provider. The bird will know that person as an individual.
Even if it is just a canary or a budgie, it has a personal relationship
with that person. It is very different for a bird to be driven
up from Cornwall, to go to a sale in Newark or somewhere, then
to be sold and passed on to somebody perhaps with less knowledge
who lives in Carlisle. It is very different if that same species
of bird, say a budgerigar or a canary, goes to an exhibition where
the owner of that bird is motivated through egotistical gain to
try and gain a prize for that bird. That bird will be in prime
condition when it goes to an exhibition; the owner will be proud
of that bird. It goes in the same cage to that exhibition that
it has been in before. When it returns home, it goes to the same
place as it has been before, it is in the same cage, it is on
the same diet. It does not suffer the same stress levels. The
genuine exhibitions can be used as a reasonable ground for exchange
of knowledge of information between hobbyists. I do not have a
great problem with that. I personally, from veterinary knowledge,
would not take any of my birds to an exhibition because the risks
increase. The other problem is that when birds are stressed, and
the ones on sale are stressed because they are of unknown origin
and many of them are wild caught, their immune system is extremely
weakened so they succumb to disease more easily, whereas exhibition
birds will be used to being caged; they will be trained for the
exhibitions that they are going to go to so they are less stressed
so their immune system operate relatively easily. There is a significant
and qualitative difference between exhibitions and sales, and
I think that distinction needs to be maintained.
Q181 Mr Lepper: I have a question for
the Animal Protection Agency. You refer in your evidence to the
advice of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health on pet
fairs, and I think you tell us that Defra itself has relied on
that evidence.
Ms Toland: Defra have said in
a standard letter that their legal advisers concur with the advice
of the Chartered Institute on Environmental Health.
Q182 Mr Lepper: And is that Chartered
Institute on Environmental Health view expressed in a particular
document published by that organisation?
Ms Toland: It was originally sent
out in the summer of 2001 advising local authorities not to license
these events because they fall outside the Pet Animals Act.
Q183 Mr Drew: Is there any concern that,
if there was a legal ban on pet fairs and maybe on exhibiting
animals, there is a danger it would go underground? That people
would still continue to do this?
Mr Glendell: There is a danger
that anything would go underground. Dog fighting goes underground,
badger baiting goes underground, game bird fighting goes underground—it
happens. We pass laws and people break the laws. If you are going
to have a law which has at its ethos this duty of care and these
five freedoms you have to take those on board, and I think there
is a genuine motivation within government to want to do that.
I think this is a landmark piece of legislation if we get it through.
Yes, some people will break the law, but it is quite difficult
to break the law consistently in an event which requires the public
paying an admission fee. You have to advertise it even if you
just advertise it on the internet or in local papers. It is a
very difficult thing to do without advertising. It is not commercially
viable.
Q184 Mr Drew: Is there much money in
people who sell through the fairs, and would these same people
be using ideas like catalogues, mail order and so on or the equivalent
thereof, to find what their customers are looking for? Are we
looking at quite a complex arrangement? I understand people turn
up on the day at a fair and there are people who would certainly
want to go out and buy a parrot, but most people would have thought
beforehand about what would be involved in that, but you say that
is not the case?
Mr Glendell: What happens is that
people go to these fairs because you can get the birds cheaper,
and you do not know what you are buying. You do not get a receipt
or guarantee for it. I have never had a guarantee or receipt for
any bird I have bought—or I have had brought for me—and
what happens then is that the people who buy them are on a very
steep learning curve, and within three weeks or three months they
find out they cannot keep that bird that was flying round the
rain forest three or four months ago, and they will phone up the
RSPCA and I am on the RSPCA helpline, and the RSPCA will divert
the call to me and I will do the best I can. But it is not the
same as buying in a fixed pet shop premises where you can go in,
even build up a relationship with the bird that you might want
to buy in a few weeks' time, get used to it, talk to the staff
over a period of time. These birds are selling for somewhere between
£200 and £2,000 each, depending on the species and whether
they are hand raised or not.
Q185 Chairman: Mr Glendell, you have
given us a very powerful condemnation of these as places for the
sale of birds. Why did you end up buying some from them?
Mr Glendell: To prove that they
were diseased, and most of them that I buy are.
Q186 Chairman: Purely for scientific
reasons?
Mr Glendell: Well, I call it animal
welfare but yes, and most of the birds are diseased but you would
expect that because a lot of them are wild caught birds so they
are not examined medically. Suppose somebody buys a Blue Crown
Conure for £15 wholesale, what is the point of somebody spending
£30 on veterinary fees? You get two more for that price,
and if the bird dies—what is the point? Nobody doing the
balance sheets is going to think "Oh, I'm going to spend
£30-£40 on antibiotic treatment".
Mr Warwick: Can I expand on this?
One of the roles I have is I manage a fairly large veterinary
clinic that specializes in exotic animals, and we see a lot of
animals that are clearly cases where people have bought them and
really do not know much about them, and that raises two things.
Firstly, animals at these markets, no matter what the intentions
of the organizers, even if their intentions are wonderful, if
it is an event like the NEC or one where Mr Taylor visited and
I assume there were quite a lot of birds there, if I take the
NEC example of the National Caged and Aviary Bird exhibition,
there are something like 75,000 to 100,000 birds at that event.
Now any decent vet will tell you it takes a minimum of ten minutes
to clinically examine one bird and say whether it is healthy or
ill. There were six inspectors for that entire event, so what
chance is there for that event being declared a healthy event
from the bird's perspective? None realistically, and yet they
decided to do it. I do believe that out of the twenty-two regulations
that were set and imposed legally by the local authority, fifteen
of them were failed and no action was taken. There is an enforcement
problem now, but what is the enforcement problem going to be like
if these events are legalized? Another point is that the information
given out is far from adequate. I have worked within reptile biology
at a pretty high level for 25 years and I do not for one second
believe that I can keep a reptile in captivity and not stress
it. I think most people would say the same, and Fred Fry who was
going to be here and who is the world's premier vet in reptile
medicine was going to say exactly the same. He cannot keep them
and this gentleman cannot keep them, so what chance does the average
person have of keeping these animals alive? One I hope appropriate
way of looking at it is that if you walk into any good book store
in this country and elsewhere you will find shelf after shelf
of wonderful books written by excellent, genuine, medical experts
on everything from pre natal experiences, conception, childbirth—you
name it, right up until this individual wants a Mini Cooper, and
in that whole time can you really say you have definitely not
had any problems with the result of what comes naturally, our
own children? It is a very key point because for us the genetic
link is very strong. We understand; we are in sympathy; we have
a natural maternal relationship with our off-spring. Now, try
and imagine what goes wrong with that, even though we have this
wonderful Health Service to back us up, and instead of an off-spring
of our own bodies we are talking about a species that comes from
another part of the world, that is not even mammalian; it may
be reptilian, avian or piscean—fish—we know very little
about where it lives in the wild, how that ecosystem works, and
then we put it from its own environment about which, as I have
said, we know very little, through a treadmill, a real ringer
of experiences, put it in this country, or captive-breed it which
produces a very strange animal indeed, put them into the worst
possible circumstances under the worst possible conditions with
the minimal amount of protection, and then we want to offer them
a few leaflets. Even a car comes with a thick manual and we all
know how to use it. I buy this shirt and it comes with a leaflet.
Now, I can cope with a leaflet on shirt care—iron or not,
fine—but with an animal that is a biological organism, very
complex indeed, which we know very little about, and the most
advanced scientific work we have now pretty much tells us that
reptiles, fish, amphibians, and birds are no less complex than
human beings, what are the chances in a few leaflets of trying
to care for these animals, or selling them at a pet fair? Zero.
Q187 Alan Simpson: You offer us a very
clear definition of what is acceptable and what is not, and the
distinction between an exhibition and a fair. I just want to ask
you what your views are in respect of the responsibilities for
prosecution, and this was a contentious point for a number of
witnesses and it would be helpful for us as a Committee to know
your views.
Mr Warwick: It is really difficult,
and I do not know how you guys are going to solve it. My view
is that yes, the RSPCA is in a very good position to be an investigative
authority. Local authorities, however, do the best job they can
but realistically with the level of problem that you have with
exotic animals—and, as I have just mentioned, it is such
a specialised field where you are talking about twenty people
in the world who can honestly put their hand up and say "I
know a good deal about these animals", the rest are kind
of amateurs in a sense—how can local authorities realistically
assess these animals and enforce these conditions? It is very
tough indeed. In terms of the actual legislation in action, I
feel that because the issue of assessing welfare is so complex,
the main problem is people go in there and say, "Yes, this
looks fine to me" and they walk out. Even RSPCA inspectors—no
disrespect to them—do not know what they are looking for.
The problem is that if you have an event that is legal but is
so highly questionable, the logical result is to play safe and
not have it at all. That is why I think the problem of enforcement
is one that is generated by the prospect of having pet fairs legalised,
whereas if you simply keep the status quo—
Q188 Alan Simpson: Sorry, but let me
cut in here. I was not asking how that would work in pet fairs
because I was taking as a given your view that they should be
illegal, but what I was saying to you is we would still then be
left with the question of who would have a legal duty to prosecute
in respect of legal trade. That is the area that is still contentious
and I wanted a cross-section of your views on that.
Mr Warwick: It is not really one
for me, to be honest. I am not a lawyer. I do think the RSPCA
is a good medium for it and local authorities could be a good
medium for it, but it is really not my field and I stand back
from that one.
Dr Mugford: My experience is that
environmental health officers are well networked with experts
in areas of this and that, be they environmental control, be they
noise pollution, be they animal welfare, and I think the local
authorities should carry this sword into battle against this trade
that we so disapprove of. On a wider point, if I could offer a
comparison, there is this anomaly that we heap so much protection
upon our domestic wild life—you place a red robin in a cage
and all of Heaven is in a rage—and it is extraordinary that
we draw a distinction between the native European or perhaps British
wildlife, and exotic wildlife that has come from the tropics and
environments which are so contrasting with our own, and these
do not have the same level of protection as our indigenous wildlife.
It is ridiculous.
Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, thank
you very much indeed for some very helpful, forcefully but nonetheless
clearly put perspectives. You have added to our understanding
of the subject and for that we thank you very much. May I also
thank your respective organisations for the written material you
have kindly sent us. If there are further points you would want
to emphasise to us do not hesitate to write, but we already have
a very large pile of material to wade through. Nonetheless, thank
you very much for your contribution to our inquiry.
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