Foreword and acknowledgements
Foreword
Consideration of animal welfare in the management of invasive animals is essential to ensure that control techniques are performed humanely. For this reason, a workshop hosted by RSPCA Australia, the Animal Welfare Science Centre and the Vertebrate Pests Committee was held in 2003 in Melbourne, Australia. The workshop examined solutions for achieving humane invasive animal control and identified a major stumbling block in the consideration of animal welfare. While the workshop participants indicated there was a will to include animal welfare in control strategies and in the registration of new control products, what was lacking was an accepted way to do this. In other words, to properly consider humaneness in invasive animal management, we needed to have a reliable and practical method of assessing it.
After further thought and discussion, and with the financial support of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry under the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy (AAWS), a project to develop a model for assessing the relative humaneness of pest animal control methods commenced in April 2007. Under the management of a steering group formed from members of the AAWS Wild Animals Working Group, Trudy Sharp and Glen Saunders, from the NSW Department of Primary Industries Vertebrate Pest Research Unit, were commissioned to develop the model.
It was clear that the model would require significant stakeholder input and agreement for it to have any chance of a wide uptake and ultimate impact. The project included broad consultation and the direct involvement of a range of stakeholders, with the goal of achieving the eventual endorsement of those individuals and groups.
Creating a suitable, workable model proved to be a difficult process due to the variety of control techniques used, the wide range of pest animals targeted, and the inclusion of both lethal and non-lethal methods. The final aim therefore was to produce a practical, general model of assessment that can be applied to any pest control method.
The model does not give an absolute measure of humaneness: it is designed to allow a judgement to be made about the impact of a specific control method on the target animal. When the model is applied to a range of different methods, these can be compared and a decision can be made on the choice of method that is informed by an understanding of the relative humaneness of each method being considered.
The model presented here provides a reliable, functional and accepted method that enables humaneness to be considered as an integral part of planning invasive animal control. The next step is for those involved in the decision making process, including government agencies, registration authorities and land managers, to ensure its uptake and application.
I commend the model to you.
Bidda Jones
Leader, Project Steering Committee
Chief Scientist, RSPCA Australia
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the input and guidance of the project steering group with special thanks to Dr Bidda Jones and Ms Kristy McPhillips for their invaluable support and assistance. We would also like to thank the numerous stakeholders who provided useful comments throughout the project and also rofessor David Mellor for his suggestions on improving the humaneness model.
This project has been funded by the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) under the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy AAWS).
