The German Animal Welfare Federation is participating today as an expert witness in a hearing on the Animal Welfare Act before the Agriculture Committee of the German Bundestag. The hearing was called in response to a motion by the Left Party, which includes a series of measures intended to strengthen the Animal Welfare Act and is supported by the German Animal Welfare Federation. The Federation is calling on the federal government to amend the Animal Welfare Act and make urgently needed improvements.
“The hearing on the Animal Welfare Act sends a clear signal to the federal government,” says Thomas Schröder, President of the German Animal Welfare Association. “We need an Animal Welfare Act that not only implements the measures outlined in the coalition agreement but also closes additional loopholes and provides animals with genuine protection.”
The federal government is currently planning to make video surveillance mandatory at larger slaughterhouses under the Animal Welfare Act. The German Animal Welfare Association does not understand why smaller facilities should be exempt from this regulation. The association calls for mandatory video surveillance at all slaughterhouses—regardless of size. Furthermore, the opportunity must be seized to comprehensively amend the Animal Welfare Act and enshrine crucial improvements for animals in law. This includes, in particular, a nationwide mandatory neutering requirement for outdoor cats, which holds private cat owners accountable—a step that is long overdue to reduce the suffering of stray cats and is also supported by the SPD in its party platform. In the course of the debate, the German Animal Welfare Federation is also calling for, among other things, the clarification of the ban on cruel breeding practices, a ban on the transport of live animals to third countries, and a clear goal for phasing out animal testing. “The last attempt to amend the Animal Welfare Act failed due to the collapse of the traffic-light coalition. Now it is the duty of the current federal government to revise the Animal Welfare Act in such a way that it meets the constitutional goal of animal welfare,” said Schröder.
