Changes to the Animal Protection Act 2012

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The Croatian Animal Protection Act that came into effect on January 1, 2007, prescribes a minimum protection for animals that people exploit and kill in various forms of human activity. The Act is speciestic, meaning that its primary goal is to protect humans' economic and political interests, and animals are thus being protected within the framework that does not impact these interests.

As an organization, we believe that animals are beings that have the right to life without human exploitation, endangerment and killings and that they should not serve human "needs". However, even in the battle for human rights (slavery, women's rights, child labour, same sex unity, etc.) legal provisions should first ensure minimal protection for the underprivileged before human consciousness matures about ethical unacceptability of oppression of the weak, and so the animal protection movement also needs to walk such a path. The specificity of the animal protection movement is in the fact that those who don't have the power and are exposed to human violence cannot fight for themselves and depend on enlightened members of the human race. Therefore, in our work we are committed to legal provisions that would enable the most comprehensive animal protection possible, considering the current level of ethical consciousness in people, and the possibility of sanctioning violators. We are aware that a true change for all living creatures can only be achieved by changing our own habits associated with the exploitation and murder of animals. The change for animals begins on a personal level, but we are calling all the individuals and associations to send their comments and requests for changes to the Animal Protection Act to the governing Ministry of Agriculture, which will give animals more legal protection than they currently have.

Animal Friends requests the following changes to the Animal Protection Act:

Definition of animals

In the Animal Protection Act there is no explanation of the term "animal".

Text suggested by Animal Friends: "Animals: all vertebrates, except man, and cephalopods."

Explanation: We believe that the Act should encompass all animals. However, as the "Act applies to all animal vertebrates," it should, apart from the vertebrates, also apply to all living cephalopods. Research showed that invertebrates, especially cephalopods such as octopi, squid and similar creatures, can feel pain. A group of cognitive and computer scientists, neuroanatomists, neuropharmacologists and neurophysiologists from Cambridge University wrote and signed a document called "Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness" in July 2012 which officially confirms the fact that animals such as mammals and birds and many other creatures, including octopi, have the same neurological substratum that create consciousness in people. The Declaration can be read in full in English here.

Therefore we consider it justified and necessary that the Act protects cephalopods generally, considering the fact that they also feel the pain, regardless of in which area and for what purpose they are being exploited, hurt, and killed by people.

Ban on fights and staged animal conflicts

The Animal Protection Act bans animal fights, encourages aggression and inciting animals against another animal or humans. This provision should have no exception, but this barbaric and primitive way of having fun should evolve into modern shows that do not include the exploitation of animals, (i.e. they do not include animal fights or other forms of animal conflict that are unfoundedly attempting to be called traditional)...

Legal ban on dog racing

The current Animal Protection Act bans "organizing dog racing on hard surfaces". However, dog races are equally cruel on all the surfaces and the Act should not encourage dog racing on soft surfaces, which it indirectly does by thus formulated provision, but it should unequivocally ban dog racing on all surfaces. In the United States, where the dog racing problem is most pronounced, dog racing on any surface is banned in 38 states, and in five states, due to awareness and pressure from the citizens, there are no racetracks nor do dog races take place. Considering that treatment of racing dogs is already recognized by legislation of the countries that have long history of dog racing, it is necessary to prevent the cruelty to animals that might take place in Croatia, all just for earnings on bets...

Statutory ban on keeping dogs on chains

Animal Protection Act prescribes protecting animals from cruelty and therefore it should contain a concrete ban on keeping dogs on chains, which represents physical and psychological torture of animals as they can become aggressive because of the way they are kept. Apart from that, no other animal species should be kept permanently tied, but it should have the right to daily outlet, i.e. movement...

Legal ban on experimenting on primates

Animal Friends suggests that the Animal Protection Act should ban experiments on farmed primates and the import of primates and their young from the wild for experiments. Crucial physiological differences mean that by carrying out experiments on primates we are learning only about them, and not about us, so it’s not a surprise that decades of experimenting on primates in so many areas has not resulted in finding any new medicine. Primates' exceptionally high intelligence and their ability to suffer deeply and experience mental breakdown additionally emphasise the ethical unacceptability of experimenting on them. Even though, as far as we know, there are no such experiments currently being conducted on primates in Croatia, it is imperative to ban such practice by the law...

Ban on grinding up live animals

Animal Friends proposes that the Animal Protection Act should introduce the following provision: "It is prohibited to grind up live animals, that is, the maceration in the egg production industry." The ordinance on the protection of animals at the time of slaughter prescribes chickens under 72 hours old and embryos in eggs to be immediately ground up alive or macerated. This standard procedure in the egg industry is extremely cruel because animals are being ground up alive during which they experience horrible pain...

The obligation to assist injured animals

The Animal Protection Act says: "Any person who injures an animal must render assistance to the animal as may be necessary and if he/she is not able to do it himself/herself he/she must arrange for assistance to be provided." The most frequent way that animals get injured is on the road, and the person driving most often carries on. If somebody else wishes to help the animal, but has no money to pay for the treatments (which is mostly the case), no veterinary station wants to take over and treat the animal. Therefore it is imperative that Act prescribes the following: if it is not possible to establish who injured the animal, the local self governing unit must organise and finance the assistance...

Experimenting on stray and feral animals

The Animal Protection Act has no provision that regulates experimenting on primates and stray animals, as well as feral animals (except for manufacturing biological remedies). In Europe there are about 120 million stray animals that through such provision become easy pray for animal testing. Directive 63/2010/EU which EU members should implement in their own national legislation, does not allow conducting experiments on stray and feral animals, except in strictly defined exceptions. That is why it is important to ban this practice using the Animal Protection Act, so that non-existent or insufficiently precise provisions wouldn't be subject to double meaning and misuse...

Surgical operations on animals during experiments

The Animal Protection Act allows surgical operations on animals during an experiment or in the production of biological preparations to be carried out by veterinarians, but also medical doctors, pharmaceutical chemists, medical biochemists, dentists, experts in animal husbandry or biologists. Surgical procedures on animals should only be carried out by veterinarians and possibly by doctors who become specialised as surgeons...

Breeders of companion animals

Animal Friends is completely opposed to the breeding and selling of animals, as well as any form of exploiting and manipulating their reproductive system. However, regarding the present level of awareness and the existence of breeders, it is first and foremost necessary to register everyone who engages in breeding and wishes to sell animals, regardless of the number of "breeding females," because, according to the provisions of the Animal Protection Act, at the moment those who have less than three breeding females are subject to no control whatsoever and that is a grey zone in breeding...

Breeding control of companion animals

Current provisions in the Animal Protection Act which refer to ensuring breeding control of animals that have a guardian should be changed in order to ensure that guardians spay/neuter their companion animals. There are too many abandoned and stray animals and they pose a great financial burden to local communities and citizens, which is why the responsible guardians should be sanctioned if they don't rehome the offspring of the animals they are taking care of...

Legal ban on keeping animals in circuses

The Animal Protection Act prohibits one to "keep wild animals in circuses and use them in circus performances and other performances involving animals." Regardless of whether the animals being kept in circuses are domestic, companion or wild animals, keeping them in such revels is abuse as they are forced to behave unnaturally, are subjected to training for regular performances and are constantly being moved and transported. This is why it should be prohibited by law to keep any animal in a circus, as well as to use wild animals in animal shows...

Ban on dolphin captivity

Social communities of animals held in captivity are entirely unnatural, and the animals are exposed to great stress, apathy and inadequate living conditions. Although the ban on dolphin captivity has been effective for years according to the ordinance issued by the Ministry of Environmental and Nature Protection, because Croatia is entering the EU it is possible that this decree will stop being valid. Therefore it is imperative that the Animal Protection Act ban dolphin captivity in order to maintain that this decree stays effective with the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture...

Non-profit nature of animal shelters

It should be prescribed by law that animal shelters should be of a non-profit nature. This way the shelters would be run by associations, institutions, and public services - i.e. the organizations that care about doing a good job, whose work can be easily supervised and those that have no interest in profit making, and therefore will not neglect the welfare of animals and proper enforcement of the law as well as not ruthlessly spending city funds, as such is the case with shelters run by profit making organizations...

Penalties for not establishing animal shelters

The Animal Protection Act states that the establishment and operation shall be financed by one or more units of local or regional self-government, whereas "the activities of collecting abandoned and lost animals shall be financed by units of local self-government". Despite that, many local communities have not established animal shelters since the implementation of the Animal Protection Act in 2007, thus violating the law, and it is therefore necessary to prescribe penalty provisions in order to force them to take the Act seriously and begin to put it into practice...

Advertising abandoned animals in shelters

Dogs from veterinary stations and shelters are very poorly advertised for fostering or not advertised at all. No animal is impossible to adopt, even older and injured/disabled animals, if they are well advertised. Even though it is prescribed in the Animal Protection Act that an animal shelter must "make effort to locate the owner of an abandoned and lost animal or try to place it in a foster home," it is necessary to specify that it is necessary to try and find a new home for animals through public media...

Charging an animal's stay at a shelter

The Animal Protection Act enables misuse of the provision referring to the opportunity to sell an animal from the shelter. Therefore it should be prescribed by the Act that the shelters are only allowed to charge future foster carers for the cost of a dog's stay at the shelter...

Ban on animal killings in shelters

The Animal Protection Act prescribes fostering abandoned animals, veterinary care, advertising and their rehoming as well as education, which is the only correct and effective way of solving the problem. The possibility of killing animals after 60 days is inappropriate and should be removed from the Act. Apart from being unethical, allowing the killing encourages those who want to profit from animal care by spending the taxpayers’ money on a superficial implementation of the Animal Protection Act...

Animal protection inspection

In Croatia there is no animal protection inspection, nor is there an animal police force. It is necessary to build a base for founding an animal police force in order to effectively implement the Animal Protection Act and punish the abandonment, neglect and torture of animals...

Slaughter according to religious rite

The absurd law regulations created in the EU legislation, as well as Croatia's, which prescribe mandatory stunning for slaughtering of animals in slaughter houses, considering the scientifically proven suffering and pain which animals experience during their killing. However, for those same animals the duty of being stunned does not apply if they are being slaughtered for the religious community needs and their rituals, where their agony is extended by dying conscious until they bleed out. Croatia should use its legislation to protect animals and recognize modern scientific findings and political moves of European countries that have numerous religious communities which perform slaughter without prior stunning, and they have abolished or are trying to abolish this extremely inhuman and brutal practice which has no place in civilized world...

Zoophilia

The general provision in the Animal Protection Act which forbids "forcing animals into a behavior that causes them pain, suffering, injury or fear" in zoophilia's context is subject to double meaning and misuse. Zoophiles will claim, exploiting natural animal instincts, that the animal wasn't forced into a sexual act, but wanted this herself, and that during the act it didn't feel pain, suffering, injury and fear. That is why there is a need for sexual intercourse with animals to be clearly and unequivocally forbidden by the Act, similar to a practice in European countries...

Animal exploitation for tourism

It is necessary to solve the problem of presenting animals in places where this is not allowed, i.e. the problem of exploiting animals for tourism purposes such as bringing snakes and other animals to the beaches and peers with intention of charging for photographs, touching and similar. Also, exploiting donkeys that tourists ride or horses that make a living merry-go-round should also be banned because this is not an appropriate manner in which to treat the animals especially the ones that should be specifically protected.

Making horses or other animals drag wooden logs for the fun of tourist audience should be more precisely defined, i.e. banned by the Act, considering that unfortunately, such cases of animal abuse appear in Croatia.

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