Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320-334)
MR JOHN
BEST
13 SEPTEMBER 2004
Q320 Ms Atherton: I have a wonderful
hedgehog sanctuary in my constituency. You could not get much
smaller than a hedgehog sanctuary. It is much loved and much supported.
It is run from a large house. I know that they regularly have
veterinary visits and they visit the vets. I really cannot believe
that you would get much smaller than this hedgehog sanctuary.
Therefore, my concern is for some of the donkey sanctuaries, for
example, which we have all read about in the press and seen on
television. Surely, we need to ensure that both wild and domesticated
animals are encompassed in this legislation?
Mr Best: We are really worrying
about the costs, are we not, rather than the ethics behind the
Bill?
Q321 Ms Atherton: If they cannot afford
a veterinary visit, then I question whether they will call a vet
to visit.
Mr Best: I take your point, but
I am still worried that a lot of units will take this as a sign
and they will actually give up and close. That indication has
been given to me time and time again in contacts with these smaller
units. Whether it is sour grapes or not, I do not know.
Q322 Joan Ruddock: My question flows
on from the very points about the costs. I wonder to what extent
there is a surplus need. Are there many more animals being found
that need to be taken somewhere and a lack of places at the moment?
What kind of balance is there between demand and supply? I presume
that with a lot of sick wild animals, particularly those that
have been injured, they cannot be taken any great distance, so
there is some sort of need for quite a lot of places. I share
Candy Atherton's concern totally because I have also come across,
even in an urban setting, the cat problem. That point is very
well taken. We obviously want to have better standards but I do
think there is this question of provision. I wonder what would
encourage or help people to be able to operate at a reasonable
level with proper welfare on a fairly local basis so that people
did not have to say that there are just 10 animal hospitals, or
whatever it is.
Mr Best: There is, I am sure,
a much bigger demand for suitable places for casualties to be
taken than exists at the moment, and the number is decreasing.
I am a practising veterinary surgeon and I see this in my area.
A veterinary practice very often is the first place a person would
think to turn to when they are faced with a wildlife casualty.
I hear from lots of my colleagues that they either have no local
rehabilitation units that they can send the animals to once they
have assessed them and given them first aid or, if they have,
those are closing. I think this is a real concern. It puts great
pressure on veterinary practices. I am afraid it does mean that
a lot of animals are euthanased that may well, with care, have
been able to be returned to the wild. It comes back to the business
of costs and whether it is possible for a system of registration
of smaller units to occur without them being charged for their
registration.
Q323 Patrick Hall: Is your Council a
membership organisation?
Mr Best: It is just a council
of rehabilitation unit owners, veterinary surgeons and animal
welfare charity members. We have members and a steering committee
of 15.
Q324 Patrick Hall: You refer to units
and presumably not so much individuals, the people who look after
these animals.
Mr Best: They do vary from a small
unit run by one person or a family up to a large hospital that
would have staff and professional staff.
Q325 Patrick Hall: In order for me to
better understand what is possibly being presented by the draft
Bill and what you are saying in response to that, I would like
to hear from you what the current situation is vis-a"-vis
sanctions and controls. I might be getting the impression that
there are none with regard to even quite well established sanctuaries,
never mind individuals who look after birds in the garden shed
or something. What are the current sanctions and controls?
Mr Best: The controls are the
same controls that there are for the welfare of domesticated animals,
companion animals.
Q326 Patrick Hall: That would mean calling
in the RSPCA or somebody else calling them for an inspection that
is not very well resourced if something extreme had already happened?
Is that fair?
Mr Best: That is the way most
of the cases of welfare abuses arise. They are few and far between
in wildlife casualty units, but they do occur.
Q327 Patrick Hall: That is what the law
provides at the moment?
Mr Best: Yes, and there is also
special protection, under the Wildlife and the Countryside Act,
for the scheduled species, the schedule 4 birds, but that is more
about registration than welfare.
Q328 Patrick Hall: Good practice goes
well beyond that. There are units that pay vets and others to
raise standards.
Mr Best: Yes, and some have their
own veterinary staff. Most of the veterinary assistance is done
by a local practice very much on a charitable basis. Most of the
units I know have a tame vet who does a lot of their work for
them and maybe only charges costs.
Q329 Patrick Hall: That brings me to
your proposed two-tier system and the simpler registration scheme
for the smaller units and presumably more active individuals as
well that would be counted as a unit. I see a unit as involving
several people but I suppose it need not necessarily. Who would
carry out that inspection, which is presumably also under a registration
scheme? I am asking you whether that would not also include advice
on good practice but, if necessary, to challenge and maybe prosecute
if things were not done properly. That suggests quite a few skilled
resources being applied. Where do you think those would come from?
Mr Best: This is a major problem.
To my mind, the most obvious source of informed inspectors would
be the RSPCA inspectorate. In each district, to my understanding,
there is at least one inspector who has training in handling and
dealing with wildlife. To my mind, these people could well form
the basis of an inspectorate.
Q330 Patrick Hall: Have you asked the
RSPCA?
Mr Best: Not formally.
Q331 Patrick Hall: I am sure they would
be delighted at your suggestion that they do a bit more work.
Mr Best: The opinion was that
they are overstretched at the moment. To my mind, this would be
an excellent function for the people who have gone through the
training in handling and dealing with wildlife. We are not talking
about a vast amount of work. Nobody really knows the number of
rehabilitation units in this country at the moment but I would
doubt if it would be more than 300.
Q332 Ms Atherton: Could we explore a
little beyond where the Bill currently goes to an area in which
I was interested in my previous life as a journalist. I wrote
extensively about the reintroduction to the wild of barn owls
that had been reared in rehabilitation centres. There was some
debate as to whether this was cruelty because the barn owls, it
was alleged, were less likely to thrive, more likely to get run
over, and the mortality rate was significantly higher than among
the wild population in its entirety. I was not conscious or aware
that there was any legislation that could have stopped that happening
if it had been definitively proved that this was quite detrimental
to the barn owl population. Talking in a general sense, if a similar
situation arose where it was definitively proved that it was to
the detriment of wildlife if a householder had started doing something
to protect birds which was not in their interest, do you think
those sorts of issues should be taken on board, or is that going
much further than you would want?
Mr Best: It is going further than
we are thinking at the moment but I am sure any code of practice
would include stipulations on how rehabilitated animals and their
release will affect the wild populations.
Q333 Ms Atherton: That would be the practice
and therefore that inevitably relies on people's goodwill?
Mr Best: Yes, but is it not the
intention that a code of practice made under the regulations of
this Bill would actually become a statutory code of practice ultimately?
Q334 Ms Atherton: It is a draft Bill.
Mr Best: Yes, but it is good practice
and it is an important point. It is a drum that we bang continuously
that people who are holding casualties not only think of the casualty
but think of the effect of releasing that animal into a wild population
and the effect it may have on disease transmission or interaction
between animals.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed,
Mr Best, for making yourself available to be questioned by the
Committee. Thank you again for your written evidence. If there
is anything else that would help with these exchanges that you
want to clarify, do not feel inhibited from writing to us again.
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