European Parliament Hears Case for Ban on Wild Animals as Pets

Two days ago at the European Parliament, the European coalition of animal welfare NGOs, ENDCAP, launched its new publication on ‘Wild Pets in the European Union’ to a packed room of Members of the European Parliament, Representatives of EU countries and officials from the European Commission. Speakers: Daniel Turner (Born Free Foundation); Clifford Warwick (Emergent Disease Foundation); Rachel Hevesi (Wild Futures), spoke passionately, and provided evidence as to why there should be a ban in the trade of wild animals for pet keeping.

Parliamentarians were quick to add their support. South East England MEP, Catherine Bearder, chaired the meeting, and openly supported a ban on the trade in wild-caught and threatened animal species; Chris Davies MEP was alarmed to hear of the high mortalities in animal trade and the economic losses; whilst Kriton Arsenis MEP of Greece, expressed his concern about the risks of disease transmission in the keeping wild animals in the home and called for a complete ban on all wild pet keeping. Under fire, the Commission responded to a series of questions regarding inconsistency in EU trade regulation, evidence of limited knowledge by enforcement agencies, and requests to provide detail on their policy-making concerning wild animal trade.

It is clear that there is much work to be done and now it has become clearer as to where efforts must be focused. A strategy will be developed over the next few days, and executed over the next six months with the aim ultimate to limit the trade in wild animals for pet keeping and furthermore, to seek opportunities to improve knowledge and training of enforcement agencies in countries throughout the EU.

ENDCAP members are encouraged to express their concerns to Claudia Olazabal ([email protected]), Deputy Head of Biodiversity for the European Commission, asking that all EU Member States record and monitor ALL animals (and numbers of animals) imported into their country and seek to tighter trade restrictions to limit, as much as possible, the keeping of wild animals as pets.

For more details on the issues visit our campaign pages and http://www.bornfree.org.uk/news/news-article/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1127