NOT a new subject, and I accept this is currently only speculation, but it is speculation that appears not to be going away as once again the Government Vets at IFAPA (the equivalent of OCA for our region in Spain) have mentioned meetings to discuss the future use of TRACES, regardless of the Brexit outcome.
Before I explain the speculation let me provide a very basic overview of the objective of TRACES.
Simply put it exists to record the movement of livestock from one owner to a new owner. The original owner must be registered on the TRACES system, as must the new owner, and the respective owners must be able to produce evidence of the treatment and welfare while the animals was under their ownership. It was devised to be used for livestock e.g. movement of cattle, so that in the event of say a foot and mouth outbreak the history of both movement and treatment of an animal could be easily traced.
I doubt anyone ever envisaged it being used for the transport of re-homed animals, but it is the only legal option at the moment and as I wrote recently, DEFRA have said it is the most abused system that they have to deal with, and by that they mean: use of Pets Scheme instead of TRACES, TRACES being done by non owners i.e. third party kennels etc, animals not being delivered to the new owners address.
Yes, I am sorry, but all of these are wrong (although understandable and more often than not done with the animals welfare in mind i.e. shorter journey times, difficulty of getting registered for TRACES).
Back to the IFAPA/OCA meeting(s) where they have told us several times that they have been told that the powers that be want to introduce two ‘changes’, which in reality are not so much changes as enforcing the system:
- They only want the registered Protectora to be able to ‘do the TRACES’ i.e the registered owner of the animal.
- They only want the animals delivered to one registered location where they wait the required 48 hours to enable inspection.
Point 1) is in effect a straight implementation of the system, so very hard to argue against but Point 2) is really more a case of them reducing their workload as they are all geared up to go to one location (e.g. a farm) rather than 20 private addresses, so while understandable not exactly a requirement of the system, but I suspect the fact that so many animals are being handed over to a rescue who then deliver straight away to owner is the abuse they want to stop.
Not sure what will happen regards the above, and will of course pass on any updates as soon as we hear them, but I think if I was a betting man I would be preparing for the ‘worst’ and looking at having a means of adhering to the changes ‘just in case’.