Hey, good afternoon, good evening, and good night to all who have joined us and welcome to this Commonwealth Veterinary Association, first in a series of webinars that we'll be hosting. We are really so happy to have you here. I'll just ask you.

To save time, that's. In the chat, just say hi and introduce which country you are from. You can do that in the chat.

Other protocols to observe. We have a question and answer space also that you place your question and your answer questions there. And We will attend to them after the presentation.

My name is Nigel Elliot. I am the Commonwealth counsellor, from the island of country of Jamaica. And again, I welcome you all to this seminar.

In the interest of time, please allow me to pardon the regular welcome protocols as we need to go into our session because we're all tuning in from different time zones. So let me use this opportunity now to introduce our guest speaker, Mr. Mike R Radford.

Mr. Mike Bradford is a reader in animal welfare law in the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He has more than 30 years' experience of teaching, researching, and advising on animal welfare law, and has worked closely with politicians, officials, NGOs on the development of policy and legislation.

Mike is presently a visiting lecturer at Edinburgh and Glasgow vet schools, chair of both the universities Federation of Animal Welfare, UFAW and the Human Slaughter Association HSA and a member of the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission SAWC. He was appointed OBE Order of the British Empire in 2008 for services to animal welfare law. With this, please allow me to welcome Mike as our guest speaker.

Mike, over to you. Thank you very much, Nigel, and welcome everybody. Good morning, afternoon, evening to you, and many thanks for joining.

I'm just going to switch off my video to save bandwidth, and I'll come back to you when we've finished, and, and hopefully there will be time for questions and discussion at the end. So I've been asked to provide an introduction to the fundamentals of animal protection legislation, and in doing so, I'm focusing on this occasion on domesticated and kept animals. Wildlife raises different issues and is a different presentation.

So we're in the, in the world of, of law. And The first question is what is law, and I suppose people always think of law as being predominantly rules, which it is, but I like to think of it in a, in a wider context, in the sense that it's one of the ways in which society organises itself. What is different about law compared to other, Ways in which society organises itself is of course the fact that the state in one form or another is involved, and ultimately law can be enforced through the courts.

Is law of any relevance to animal welfare and animal protection? It certainly is, and I'll very shortly explain why. One of the things that you need to do as professionals working with animals is to look at the law in your jurisdiction and ask yourself what you think, what you think the law should be attempting to achieve for animals, and having decided what you think it ought to be doing, then ask the question, how effective is it in your jurisdiction?

And if you think that it requires improvement, then how are you going to go about campaigning for that? That it's important to understand that law is very different from science. It's a completely different way of thinking.

It is jurisdictional, whereas clearly science is international, and the size of the jurisdictions can vary enormously from pan continental down to the size of a city, and where animal protection law fits in will differ from country to country, from juris. To jurisdiction. Sometimes it will be national, sometimes it will be regional, sometimes it will be more local, and sometimes it will be a mixture of that.

So if you're going to get involved, and I hope you are, if you're going to get involved in, policy and law, then you need to understand the way in which your own legal system works. And, Law is political, certainly legislation is political. Partly because it conveys and promotes particular values.

And it's also political because in most countries, legislation is passed by politicians in a political forum. And that means that at any given time, In order to get progress, get new legislation, one has to get involved in the political process. And I don't necessarily mean party political, but talking to officials, talking to politicians, talking to ministers in order to persuade them of the merits of one's case.

And as I, as I'll explain later, I think it's absolutely crucial that veterinary surgeons do this, because they are the experts. They can talk with authority about the impact of current policies on animals and how those policies could be changed through law. Why is animal protection law necessary?

Well, the, the basic reason is that in most jurisdictions, in most countries, Domesticated and kept animals have the legal status of property. And with, as is the case with any type of property, in the absence of legal restrictions, the owner of that property can treat, can use, and in this context, mistreat their animal however they wish. So one of the.

Absolute purposes and necessities of having legislation is to restrict the autonomy, to restrict the discretion of the owner or the owner's agent to mistreat their animal however they wish. The second reason why, certainly the first pieces of legislation in any jurisdiction are important, is that it establishes the legitimacy of the state to intervene to protect animals and also to promote their welfare. And thirdly, the law ultimately makes the owners and other people keeping animals accountable.

Ultimately to the courts for the way in which those animals are treated. That is the long established. Justification for.

Law and legislation. But more recently, and again I'll come to this before we finish, over the last 20 or 30 years, there's been internationally huge developments. In our understanding of the capacities and the needs of other species through animal welfare research, and it is important that the law reflects and takes account of this greater understanding.

Now I'm going to, so far as the law and domesticated and kept animals is concerned, it seems to me you can divide it into three sections. There's cruelty legislation, there's welfare legislation, and those two areas can apply across the board to anybody who, who keeps animals or owns them. And then there is regulation, which can also be involved with cruelty and welfare, but regulation is addressing people doing particular things with animals, whether it be breeding them, veterinary surgeons such as yourselves, keeping zoos or whatever.

And the thing about regulation is it can be, it can be a very effective form of enforcement, because it, on the one hand, it can ban particular activities which society has decided are unacceptable. It can lay down specific standards that must be met or at the At the very least, minimum standards, which must be met. And through licencing and registration, it's a form of enforcement, which doesn't generally require going to court.

Ultimately, It may do if somebody is simply refusing to apply and and and take on a licence or or to register, but it, the beauty of particularly licencing is that, first of all, it's essentially requires the state to give the person permission to undertake whatever activity is involved. And that means that they can be required to demonstrate particular standards before that permission is given, before the licence is granted. And then once the licence is in operation, is in effect, if there are problems, then additional.

Conditions can be attached to the licence, or ultimately the licence can be suspended or revoked. So it, it, it can be a very effective method of ensuring standards without necessarily having to go through the complex and expensive and time consuming process of prosecution. But the two things I want to concentrate on now are cruelty and welfare.

And as I say, I'm talking in very general terms here, but effective legal systems need a general piece of legislation on cruelty, a general piece of legislation on welfare, albeit that there may be lots of other legis specific, detailed legislation aimed at particular activities. So taking cruelty first, the first thing that a piece of legislation needs to do is define the animals to which it applies. And if one is looking at a general piece of cruelty legislation, the wider the better.

Generally, it, the line has been drawn at vertebrates. We're just on the cusp of it moving into some invertebrates. There's been a piece of legislation passed in the UK earlier this year called the Animal Welfare Sentience Act, and one of that's one of that statute's provisions.

Expressly recognises that decapods and some other invertebrates are sentient, and that is a direct result of scientific research and the evidence that that has produced. But in the main, with cruelty legislation, the line is drawn at vertebrates, and that the logic behind that is, by definition, a vertebrate is going to have a spinal cord, and therefore, although it may have a nervous system, which is much less developed than than the human one, it does have a new a nervous system, similar with the spinal cord and so on and so forth. And so the assumption is that those animals do have the capacity to feel pain.

And then you need to divide we're not talking about wild animals here, or animal free living wild animals, so. You need to define which animals, which vertebrates you're talking about, and one of the ways of doing this is . Putting, coming up with definitions such as are on the slide here.

So an animal of a kind commonly domesticated in the relevant jurisdiction, in the relevant country or area. So if it's something that's normally domesticated and it's a vertebrate, it will be covered. But it also applies to non-domesticated animals which are being kept, by humans.

Kept can be a difficult word to define precisely, so better to define it as being under the control of humans permanently or temporarily. And that means that, if, if I'm keeping an animal permanently, an non-domesticated animal permanently, clearly it falls within this. But if I'm out in the, out in the wild and I capture it.

Albeit for a a short period of time with the intention of letting it go, whilst I'm control whilst I have control of it, it is covered by the legislation. And they're not living in a wild state is essentially animals which are relying on humans, particularly for food. It may be that it's thought appropriate to introduce some exemptions, but clearly one wants to keep the exemptions as narrow and as well defined as possible.

For example, in the UK, commercial fishing is exempt from the general cruelty and welfare legislation, and the reason is that, Elsewhere in the legislation, it defines a humane death as being one where death is either instantaneous or the animal is rendered unconscious immediately prior to death. And clearly in commercial fishing, we've not yet reached the state where there is the equipment to either kill. Fish instantaneously or to render them unconscious, before they are killed.

As, as you're aware, they're they're generally pulled onto boats and left to suffocate. So in in order that that is not an offence, Commercial fishing is made exempt. So there, there may be, there may be policy reasons, there may be reasons of circumstance that require exemptions.

So you define the animals to which the legislation applies. It is then really important to define who is going to have legal responsibilities and legal duties towards these animals. And the owner should always be responsible.

There's lots of criticism of animals as property. But one of the advantages is if they are property, there will normally be somebody identifiable as the owner, and they can always be held responsible and should always be held in res responsible in law for the treatment and the welfare of the of their animals. Similarly, anybody who, anybody else who has permanent or temporary control of an animal should be deemed in law to be responsible for it, and that includes being in charge of an animal.

And some jurisdictions, Define, provide that where a child owns an animal, there's nothing stopping in law, a child owning an animal, but where a child owns an animal, whoever is responsible in law for the child, Normally the parents, but not necessarily so. Whoever is responsible in law for the parent, for the child, will also be deemed to be responsible for the welfare and treatment of any animals that the child owns. So the class of animals as wide as possible, the definition of responsibility for those animals as wide as possible.

Now I turn to the offence of cruelty, and this can be . Stated in lots of different ways in lots of jurisdictions, but what I've got on the screen here is about as good as it could get, I think, and I'm going to introduce you to three different offences of cruelty, and you're covering different circumstances, and, and those circumstances will become clear. Now this offence, this first offence of cruelty can be committed by anybody.

They don't have to have previously had any relationship or anything to do with the animal at all. If I see a dog in the street and go up and kick it, break its leg, having had nothing to do with the dog previously, I can be prosecuted under this offence because it applies to any person. So any person may be guilty of an offence if they cause a protected animal, that's just the the.

The class of animals that I've just described, unnecessary suffering. Now, you'll see in some, offences of cruelty, the offence is defined by particular actions, particular behaviour, such as beating, overloading animals, so on and so forth. The problem with that is it restricts the scope of the offence, because it can clearly only be committed by virtue of one of those specific actions.

This focuses on not how the cruelty arose, but by its consequence, and the consequence is causing the animal unnecessary suffering. And I think this is really important because what it means is, and, and clearly, so far as the animal is concerned, it's the suffering which is important to it. This sort of wording.

Focuses, focusing on the consequence means that it is largely relevant how that consequence arose. It is the consequence that is the offence, not how it happened. And this first offence, committed by any person can only be committed by a positive act.

And The next thing is that you will find in a number of jurisdictions that a cruelty offence can only be committed if the person intended to be cruel to the animal. And that can be very restrictive. It can also be really difficult to demonstrate to a court.

So what this wording does is say, it doesn't talk about intent, it talks about knowledge, and it says either that they knew that what they did would cause. The suffering or be likely to do so, or ought reasonably to have known, and that reasonable test means that the standard by which the defendant is judged is not their own standard, but that of the reasonable person in the same position as themselves. The second offence is.

Similarly worded. And this is the offence that where it exists, most cruelty cases are brought under. This.

It can be is committed by a person responsible for an animal, and we've already in the previous slides, defined what responsibility for an animal means. So this is a person who's responsible for an animal. Either they are the owner or they have control or they are in charge of the animal.

And they may be guilty of an offence if they cause the animal again, unnecessary suffering, so it's looking at the consequence, not how it happened. By an act or a mission. So remember that the first offence was only committed by an act of commission.

This one is by an act. Positive act or a failure to act. And that failure to act hugely extends the.

Of the offence, because in this country, for example, it's relatively few. Cases of cruelty that arise from deliberate. Acts of commission.

The vast majority arise by people failing to do things, failing to feed it properly, failing to take it to the vet, failing to give it proper exercise, and so on. And so act or omission, . Hugely extends the scope of the offence.

And then this reasonable this reasonable person test, they knew or or reasonably to have known, means that again, they're not judged by their own standards, they're judged by the standards of the reasonable person. In the same position and with a similar sort of knowledge. So a veterinary surgeon, for example, would be judged according to what it would a reasonable vet would be assumed to do.

A dog breeder would be judged by the standards of a reasonable dog breeder, and those words together mean that the, offence extends to negligence. Failing to do things when a reasonable person would have known that that failure would cause the suffering would be likely to do so. And the third offence is where the person responsible for an animal is not directly responsible for the unnecessary suffering.

But somebody acting on their behalf is, the wording there sounds complicated. So it says a person responsible for an animal, person A, commits an offence if another person causes unnecessary suffering by an act or. Mission and person A, that's the person ultimately responsible for the animal, permitted that act or omission to happen, or they failed to take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to prevent the suffering.

The wording may seem complicated, but the best example I can give you, and then it will be clear, is employer and employee. So employer is person A, they are the person ultimately responsible for the animal. If their employee causes their animal unnecessary suffering.

And the employer has either permitted that to happen or has failed to take reasonable steps to prevent it, then they can be prosecuted as well, whilst the employee is prosecuted under offence number 2, as being the person who was directly caused the suffering. And taking those three together, it, it covers the ground, it makes the offence, wide in scope, effective in application. Of course, one of the issues here is, is what does unnecessary suffering mean?

Well, the first thing is, it's got to be shown that the animal has suffered. No suffering, no offence. Provided that the prosecution can demonstrate that the animal has suffered, then the question becomes whether or not that suffering was necessary.

And this is one way in which that can be further defined, or by the courts asking these sort of questions. Could the suffering have been reasonably avoided or reduced? If it could have been, then it's likely to be unnecessary.

Is it, is the suffering otherwise lawful? If it is, then it is probably not an offence. Was the suffering caused for a legitimate purpose?

And of course this gives the court quite a lot of power because it will ultimately determine whether the purpose was legitimate. Whether it benefited the animal, for example, or whether the suffering came about as a result of protecting people, property, or another animal. But even if it's decided that it is for a legitimate purpose, that doesn't necessarily mean that the suffering is lawful, because the courts can then go on and ask, was, was the suffering proportionate to the purpose?

So there may be a legitimate purpose, but if the suffering is disproportionate, it can still be unlawful. And finally, was the conduct in the circumstances that of a reasonably competent and humane person? And again, you can see this, this reasonable person test means that if somebody is either doesn't care for their animal, Or is ignorant as to how it should be kept and looked after, that is no defence because the courts will assume that a reasonable person in the same situation would care, and if they didn't know, would find out how the animal should be looked after.

Now, A cruelty offence is absolutely essential, and in jurisdictions where there is not a tradition of animal protection legislation, a, a cruelty offence is the first thing to go for. So it's absolutely essential, but it does have shortcomings. First of all, it tends to be negative in character.

It tells you what not to do, most usually not to treat an animal cruelly or not to cause it unnecessary suffering, but it doesn't impose any positive duties. The focus is entirely on whether or not the animal has suffered. And we know that animals' conditions can be, and treatment can be inadequate without them necessarily suffering.

And indeed, in cases of negligence, where, for example, an animal is not being fed properly, it will its condition will deteriorate gradually over a period of time. And If you're not careful, that can end up with with the absurd situation of enforcement authorities sitting around waiting for the animal's condition to deteriorate to such an extent that they are satisfied they will be able to demonstrate to a court that it is actually suffering. And that is clearly a nonsense in terms of protecting the animal.

Thirdly, the offence is entirely retrospective. No offence is caused, no offence is committed until the animal has actually suffered, and in many ways that may be regarded as too late. And the burden of proof in, in many countries for the criminal law is high.

So the, an offence of cruelty can hold the perpetrator of the dog in the top picture to account. What it does not do is promote the sort of quality of life pictured in the bottom picture. So what we need is a parallel body of law.

We need a cruelty offence, but we need a parallel body of law which imposes positive responsibilities on the owners and keepers of animals, that focuses not simply on suffering, but on. The animal's quality of life, and with a view of promoting and improving that animal's quality of life. Legislation which is not retrospective, but prospective, and allows early intervention.

To address the problem. If there is a welfare problem, at most, many welfare problems, the majority of welfare problems, can be relatively easily addressed either by changing the situation in which the animal is being kept, or by removing it from that situation. And therefore, it, it's really important that, Enforcement authorities have the powers to intervene as early as possible to put, to ensure that the situation is put right.

And this second line of legislation is welfare legislation. And again, one is looking for a general . Requirement, general.

Duty to ensure the welfare of animals. So here is a typical example of a general welfare offence. Remember this is applying to all vertebrates which are either domesticated or under the control of humans.

And a person commits the offence if he or she does not take such steps as are reasonable in all the circumstances to ensure that the needs of an animal for which they're responsible are met to the extent required by good practise. Now, it's not saying that everything has got to be perfect, but it is saying that those responsible for animals have to have regard. Not to to the animal's welfare, although in this provision, welfare, the word welfare isn't actually used, it's defined by needs.

And that last provision there, the extent required by good practise, means that the standard or the expectation may change over time as what is regarded as good practise changes. And the sort of needs that we're looking for here are the need for a suitable environment, the need for a suitable diet, the need to exhibit normal behaviour patterns, the need to be housed with or apart from other animals. And the need to be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease.

And many of you may think, may recognise that as a sort of echo of the five freedoms, the freedom from thirst, hunger, malnutrition, from discomfort, from pain, injury and disease, freedom to express normal behaviour, freedom from fear and distress. The reason that this, that This formulation was adopted and and put in terms of needs, is it was thought that that sounded much more positive than freedom from, needs for much more positive and much stronger direction. And of course, these requirements, what what any particular type of animal requires is largely determined as a result of the development of animal welfare science.

And it is impossible to, overemphasise the significance of the development of animal welfare science over the last 20 or 30 years. Its origins go back to the 1960s, but, As with all these things, it, it took some time to get momentum. But since the early 1990s, it has really taken off and that those of you who, who, who've been through vet school during the last 20 or 30 years will be well aware of that.

So that it, it has developed into. And international, internationally, into a specific identifiable area of research and inquiry standing on its own right, and as you, again, as you'll be aware, there is a huge literature and. The fact of the matter is, The more the other species are studied.

The more complex their lifestyles, the, the greater the capacities we, we understand that they have, and that of course is, is crucial, taking account of those issues is crucial for their welfare. And the science is, is the beginning and end of this. The world is not quite as simple as I've suggested on this slide, but there is an element of truth.

It starts with the scientific research, and that scientific research gives us greater insight and understanding. Into the needs of other species, the capacities of other species, and the impact of human use on other species. And that knowledge changes the ethical debate.

Now, we can look back to past centuries where animals were treated appallingly, but those responsible knew no better. Today we don't have that excuse because of the development of animal welfare science. And so the knowledge, the understanding, changes the ethical debate, and that feeds into public opinion through the media, through NGOs, through professions such as yourselves.

And that public opinion influences public policy, which leads to legislation and, and so the process continues. And in similar modes. Science again in this slide is the is the beginning and the basis of of animal welfare, because it provides the evidence-based understanding of other species' needs, capacities, state, and quality of life.

Influences the ethical debate because in the light of the scientific knowledge and understanding, it changes our consideration of how we ought to treat other species. Those two together then put pressure on legislative reform, state-imposed regulation, specifying how other species are to be treated, and the three together represent public policy on animal welfare. And this business about science, ethics and law, it really is the sort of holy trinity of animal welfare.

3 interrelate with one another, and whichever background one comes from, whether it be science, ethics or law, if you're a scientist, you need to have some understanding and and and talk to the ethicists and the lawyers. If you're an ethicist, you need to talk to the scientists and the lawyers, and if you're a lawyer, you need to talk to the scientists and the the ethicists. And particularly with .

Welfare legislation, you need measure intervention measures, these can be called care notices, improvement notices, but the idea is very simple. If, A person with enforcement powers under the legislation considers that there is a problem, they identify what that problem is. And they then serve on who the owner or whoever they deem to be responsible for the animal a notice.

And the notice will state what the welfare problem is, what must be done to address it, and the time within which that those measures must be taken. And for example, in Scotland, it is an offence not to comply with such a notice. So they really two good things about them is they really concentrate the mind of those on whom they're served.

The other thing is that you can serve a notice without the animal the animal's welfare actually having been compromised. It's enough that it may be compromised. For example, if a, if a person with powers under the act passes a block of flats every day and sees the dog is being left out on a balcony.

Whilst the people are at work, and it's, there's no water, there's no food, there's no shade, no shelter, and there's railings round the side of the balcony which the dog could get through. Then, Initially, the, the, the person, the enforcement agency will advise the owner and say things need doing, and it will be done on an informal basis, but if the owner takes no notice, then they can be served with a notice. Saying these are the dangers, you must ensure that the animal, the dog has shelter, you must ensure that the dog has water, that it has food, and that you block in the gaps in the railings on the balcony.

A really useful thing that legislation can have is what is called enabling powers, and that means that it contains powers to introduce what is called secondary legislation. You may well know them as regulations or direct directions. That is legislation which is made under the authority of the statute.

But it is much easier to make because it doesn't have to go through the extended, legislative process. So for example, you would be looking for an enabling power to make regulations to promote welfare or to introduce licencing or registration schemes, for activities involving animals. And You also, of course, need enforcement, and even many jurisdictions that have good laws are let down by problems with enforcement.

It's always important to appreciate and identify who is responsible. For the implementation and enforcement of law, do they have sufficient powers, do they have sufficient resources, and do they have sufficient expertise? Because enforcement, particularly of welfare legislation is, Requires knowledge, requires expertise, requires experience, it's not just a, a tick box clipboard, exercise, and then one's got to think of the sanctions.

Ultimately, imprisonment might be thought might be appropriate, but frankly only in the minority and most serious of cases. So, so you need other issues, other sanctions, fines, community orders, working in the community, fixed penalty notice. Can be very useful because, again, they are applied administratively, not by court.

As I said earlier, licencing and registration schemes, and then maybe court orders which deprive somebody of ownership if they have not been looking after their animal. Properly or for the protection of animals in the future, a court order disqualifying them from owning animals in the future, or keeping animals in the future, or undertaking specific activities involving animals in the future. So welfare legislation focuses on the quality of life and needs of animals.

It is informed and driven forward by science. It imposes obligations on those who assume responsibility for animals and it permits early intervention to address poor welfare. And Often presentations with.

It's by a British street artist called Banksy, and what it does is depict the House of Commons in the UK Parliament, that's the elected chamber, occupied not by humans. But by chimpanzees, and I'll leave you with the question, if they were in charge of making the legislation, how would it differ from the legislation that you, wherever you are, have in your jurisdiction? Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Mike. I think that was a very enlightening, intense, just a short time that we had.

You really covered quite a lot. And I must say from where I sit with where I am in our country, we still have a far way to go. And, because a lot of our animal laws are quite old, archaic, and slowly but surely they are.

Working to try and bring them up to par, but so much has changed. I like how you touch not just on domestic animals, but you touch on the wildlife and even farm animals, especially those for animal protein. A lot of people don't seem to realise that they are protected or should be protected and handled properly.

So thanks again, Mike, on behalf of all of us here in the Commonwealth. And I think I say a few questions. Let me go to them.

OK, one person asks, are these rules for the UK only or international? They, they are, well, they are rules in, in, in, in some countries. What I'm trying to present to you is, the sort of example that if you are campaigning for change.

You could pick up and argue for with your politicians, and they certainly do exist in, in some parts of the world, in parts of Europe, in parts of, Australia, I see we've got somebody from New Zealand with us, they have similar laws as well. So, what I, what I've done here is said, look, here's, here's an agenda, you're not, and if. You, if you're in a country that doesn't have developed animal world animal protection legislation, we all have to start somewhere.

So start with a cruelty offence. And the other thing I would say is this, and it goes back to legislation being political. There will, you will work.

On campaigns which seem to make no progress at all, and it can be really dispiriting, but never ever give up, because one of the things about politics is you can bang away at a campaign for months, for years, and nothing happens, and then suddenly the planet seem to be aligned and there's an opening. And generally that opening is you get a particular politician or or group of politicians who are interested, take up the case. And if you've not, if you've not prepared in advance, there's always the danger that you'll miss the opportunity.

Yes. And the same person asks, I think it's more to Shawn or Anthony, is it possible to get a copy of the slides of the presentation, super useful for for work situations. So I think the committee will look and see if we can get the slides available to the participants.

Other question, can cruelty legislation be part of an overall animal welfare law? Or is it best to keep them separate? I, I would say if, if it's possible, put them in the same piece of legislation, because then it, it is much easier to, to educate the public with, because that, that's another thing that the law does.

It it it it's a form of education. And if, if they're together, that has the advantage that it's all, it's all in one piece of legislation. The other advantage is that, that the people who are drafting, who are writing the legislation, can, can, can fit.

The different parts together, so you don't get contradictions or you don't get gaps. But if, if that is too big a job, if that, that, that is, that is too optimistic, to do all in one go, then I would go for cruelty first. Because that, that, that, in many ways is easier to argue for.

Welfare is, as you, as, as, as professionals know, welfare is. A complicated topic, and it, and it, because of the, the developments in, in research, it, it, it's moving all the time, and that can, that can take quite a lot of the concept of welfare and, and, and. The the policies that flow from it can be quite difficult, quite challenging to explain to politicians and to non-scientists, whereas cruelty, you know, if you go to a politician and say, well, you're not in favour of.

Or or causing animals unnecessary suffering, are you? Hopefully, mostly they will say, well, of course I'm not in favour of it. And so if there is no law, the the the the the question then is, well, if you're not in favour of it, what are you going to do to protect them?

So, so it's, it's a matter of tactics, it's a, it's a matter of, of the art of the possible, given your particular jurisdiction, and the, the state of development of animal protection legislation in your jurisdiction. You know, we're lucky in the United Kingdom, we're lucky in Europe, because there is a long history of this legislation, and politicians are used to being lobbied on it, and indeed, in, in most legislatures. In Europe now, there will be at least some, some politicians who specialise in animal policy, whereas in, in many other parts of the world, it's a much more alien concept, and there's much more persuading, not simply the Details, but persuading them on the principle of having legislation to protect animals, which often will be, challenging other interest groups, is a big job, and you can only do, you can only do what is possible in your particular, jurisdiction, in your particular circumstances, but.

That do something and one, now it's taken the UK for example, 200 years. It's quite coincidentally, 2022 is the bicentenary of the first cruelty legislation being passed in Britain. And so it's taken us 200 years to get to where we are, and there's still a lot to be done, notwithstanding that we have a significant body of legislation, .

You know, we're in this for the long haul, and. One of the things that one finds is that as soon as one has addressed one particular issue through legislation, those who wish to exploit animals in an inappropriate way will find some other means of doing it. So you're always, you're always running to catch up, but it's, it's very much the art of the possible within your own particular circumstances.

OK, we have one more question here I see in the chat, I guess Mike, in your experience, or if you know, how is the matter of vertebrates, mammals caught in fishing nets which die a slow death treated in law. Well, again, it it it it varies from country to country, but until there is a, equipment, and research is being done into this, but until there is equipment which can either kill or or render unconscious large numbers of fish on the industrial scale, it is simply not. Possible, to, it's not practical or realistic to introduce a law which prevents that, where, where the, where, where the numbers of fish are large, if it's smaller numbers, if, if it's an individual fishing for their own use, then maybe, but .

The, the mamas, . That the fish just mammals. So sorry, sir, so I misunderstood the question.

So, can you repeat the question? Right, of vertebrates, mammals caught in fishing nets. Oh yes, right, I'm with you now, sorry, I misunderstood.

Well, the issue here would be, does the The, the question would be, and this would be a question of fact rather than law. Are the are the animal, is this an accident or are the animals that are caught up, the mammals that are caught up, are they under the control of whoever is responsible for the, for the netting? And there's, there's no specific answer to that.

It would, it, it, now one of the things to understand about legislation is, Legislation can say whatever it wants. Subject to it being within the terms of your country's constitution, . What, what the provisions do and what they say is entirely up to the legislature.

And so if they want, if the legislature is persuaded that mammals accidentally, for example, seals, mammals caught in fish netting, that those responsible for the netting. Be responsible for either taking reasonable care that animals don't get caught in them, or if they do that they are released as soon as possible, then that can be put into legislation, provided that there is a practical way. The That can be achieved.

There's nothing worse than legislative provisions, which sound very good on paper, on paper, but are totally impractical to apply in practise, because not only is that a waste of time, but actually it brings the the legislation into disrepute. Yes, I think they're really getting to the point if you, if a mammal is caught while you're fishing and it slowly dies. And as you mentioned, you need who takes responsible or responsibility, should you really try, you know, release the animal or you just didn't want, didn't care because they're just going for your bounty and you stay there and allow the mammal to die.

I mean, clearly, clearly there's there's there's a, there's a moral responsibility to do something about it, but . Whether there's a legal responsibility will depend entirely on whether the legislature for that jurisdiction has passed such laws or not. If it hasn't, and you think they should, then you, then, then you start lobbying.

Right. OK, I think those are all the questions I see in my box. Last chance for anyone else to submit a question.

Now I will stun silence. Yeah, I will bring this webinar session to an end. Thank you, Nigel, can I, can I just thank, thank everybody for, for listening and hopefully it's to some use.

If you do find that you want to get involved in, in, in, legislation and law, and I hope that some of you do, if you're not already. There may well be lawyers in your own jurisdiction who who will help. If not, my email address is on the university website.

It's M.radford@abdn in short for Aberdeen.ac.uk.

Please feel free to contact me. Yes, thank you very much for that, Mike, and one person has responded, excellent presentation, very enlightening. And I see we have 53 of us have been on listening to you, Mike.

So definitely we are happy for this turnout. And so again, I'll also Give my input to thank Sean and the rest of the Commonwealth webinar team for getting this done. This is the first of hopefully more to come.

I know Sean is eager to get things going come early next year. So we thank the team, Antony, Phil, and the participants all over the world. Thank you very much.

Look forward to you to do another session like this, so. Good afternoon, good evening, and good night. Take care everyone.

Until we meet again. Thanks again, Mike. Thank you very much.