Document type : Scientific article published in the Journal of Veterinary Behaviour
Authors: Clifford Warwick, Catrina Steedman
Preview: Pet trading and keeping globally involves at least 13,000 species, and at least 350 million individual nondomesticated or "wild pet" animals annually. In addition, over 445 million domesticated dogs and cats are thought to occupy homes worldwide. Several major problematic concerns are associated with pet keeping, in particular linked to nondomesticated or wild pet forms, including: animal welfare; species conservation; public health and safety; antimicrobial resistance; agricultural animal health; invasive alien organism introductions; and poor information uptake by the public. Regulation of both domesticated and wild pets characteristically involves negative list systems, under which all trading and keeping problems continue to burgeon. Negative lists involve the itemization of animal types that are monitored, restricted or banned in the context of trading and keeping, with all nonlisted animals essentially being unregulated. In contrast, positive lists involve the itemization of animal types that are permitted for trading and keeping, with all nonlisted animals essentially being barred. Compelling rationales, as well as an important scientific evidence-base, strongly indicate replacement of historically common negative list approaches with objective positive list systems to better regulate the sale and keeping of both wild pet and domesticated pet animals. This report aims to produce a novel method for developing positive lists that meets several criteria that we considered to be fundamental to a robust decision-making protocol: operational objectivity; quantitative algorithm design; no or negligible consensus-based decision-making; binary results; independent repeatability; user-friendliness; resource efficiency; optional use alongside other methods.
