Don’t be afraid to seek animal welfare help

UNDER PRESSURE: SPCA staff like Vanessa* from Waikato, expect to be frantically busy during August dealing with animal welfare problems (SPCA personnel do not give their surnames because of retribution threats). Photo Bruce Mercer

28-07-2008 | Andrea Fox

The emaciated state of MAF's on-ground animal welfare team has come to light in research by The New Zealand Farmers Weekly into how farmers are coping with winter feed shortages deemed "serious" by farming leaders in parts of the country.

With lambing and calving under way in some of the worst affected regions, including, Waikato, Manawatu, Taranaki and Canterbury, MAF and SPCA officials say their traditionally busiest time of the year is threatening to get chaotic because of poor animal condition.

The 65% increase in winter workload is a result of calls to MAF's 0800 complaint number from the public, and from processing works, vets and referrals from the SPCA, says MAF's national animal welfare investigation team chief, Alan Wilson.

"They are typically about animals in poor body condition and food shortage rather than cruelty. We are seeing an increase in the scale of work as well, more of the animals on farm are involved and that has the knock-on effect of increasing our time on the property.

"There are only five animal welfare investigators on the ground across the country, so we are looking at ways to cope," Wilson says.

The officer who polices dairying heartland Waikato, which posted its first ever drought last summer, also covers the Bay of Plenty, Coromandel, Auckland and the Far North.

Wilson's boss, MAF investigations manager Greg Reid says the problem is money.

His unit's annual budget is $860,000 - but after fixed annual costs for administration, staff, buildings and vehicles there is only $180,000 left to cover so-called "discretionary capability" -responses to events in the paddock.

"That's outside of fixed costs. So in other words (there is $180,000) to deal with a scenario outside drought."

Reid confirmed there were five officers in the field throughout the country.

According to latest MAF statistics, in 2007 there were 4.4 million beef cattle in NZ; 5.2 million dairy cows; 1.4 m deer; 38.5m sheep; 355,000 pigs and 73,000 goats and horses. That's almost 50 million livestock - or one MAF animal welfare officer for every

10 million animals.

The "discretionary" part of the annual budget was reduced this year, Reid said. He would not say by how much. A bid by his division for more funding was turned down.

Winter is traditionally MAF's busiest animal welfare time.

"We load a lot of our capability into the winter period so we have the capability to respond, so we load it up perhaps at the expense of the summer months. And suddenly you're stretching the rubber band."

The result? Reid stops short of saying farmers are getting away with being prosecuted for neglect and cruelty to animals, but says MAF's efforts have to be concentrated, because of lack of resources, on mitigating animal pain and suffering and advising farmers how to avoid a repetition.

"(That's been) at the cost of more standard processes which includes the balance around assessing criminal liability and prosecuting those farmers who fail the attitude test, who tell us to **** off the property immediately and who clearly have shown a real lack of appropriate inputs in terms of their decision-making around the managing of animals.

"The reality is at the moment we are so thin on the ground and we are running from bushfire to bushfire. A lot of what the public see is just the surface of it - it's quite chaotic."

Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton was doing "electorate work" when Farmers Weekly contacted his office.

His spokeswoman's response: "MAF's limited resources in this area is why the Government works with the SPCA and why that organisation has joint enforcement powers with MAF, i.e. the ability to prosecute animal welfare abuse cases. The SPCA has a wide spread across the country."

Anderton had secured a one-off allocation of $300,000 for animal welfare cases resulting from the drought, the spokeswoman said. Much of it would go to MAF and the SPCA.

There had been a Budget bid for more money for MAF animal welfare resources, she confirmed.

"Unfortunately, the bids for the $700m Fast Forward initiative and the $23.3m bid for the National Animal Identification and Traceability and Farmsonline initiatives took priority. It remains a priority area for the Minister and he'll be putting in another bid for extra resourcing for this area in the next Budget Round."

"Technically, funds to MAF's animal welfare enforcement unit had not been cut - it just hadn't been increased," Anderton's office said.

Meanwhile, SPCA officers in drought-affected Waikato are preparing for a difficult spring.

Hamilton-based inspector Vanessa (SPCA officials do not publicise their surnames because of retribution threats) says August will be "incredibly busy".

"The stock are still getting thinner, there's no feed, no hay and we're coming into calving. MAF have had big problems here. We are getting a lot of calls about beef cattle not fed. Some are extremely thin. There's a lot of starving sheep around too."

Vanessa had to euthanase nine sheep recently and her colleague was forced to put down three.

Her advice to farmers in difficulty: call for help.

"They should contact their local Federated Farmers or the local Rural Support Network if they haven't got the means to feed their stock. Destock, but don't let them starve."

The law provides several avenues of prosecution. For starving an animal the maximum penalty is up to three months' imprisonment or a $25,000 fine.Deliberately starving an animal could land a farmer in jail for six months.

The law provides for prosecution in relation to an entire dairy herd, Vanessa says.

"If they starve a cow and it dies that is wilful ill treatment, or if it gets to the point it has to be euthanased, that can be up to three years' jail."

At the time of writing, with more than six weeks of winter still to go, MAF's animal welfare chief Wilson said some livestock were "heading towards" starvation.

He had three officers in the North Island and two covering the South Island. Prosecutions were not MAF's main focus at the moment.

"We are resolution-focused but every now and again someone gets it so wrong we are forced to prosecute. "

There have been two prosecutions of farmers since the 2007-08 drought, he says. MAF's message to farmers was to be pro-active about animal care.

"They should ask for help instead of having us turn up on their doorstep."

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