OneKind supports new internet advertising initiative.
The Pet Advertising Advisory Group (PAAG), of which OneKind is a member, has today launched rigorous, comprehensive Minimum Standards for classified advertising websites that allow animals to be sold. Supported by leaflets and online information and with DEFRA endorsement (OneKind is encouraging the Scottish Government and other devolved administrations to do the same) the PAAG initiative recognises that internet advertising of animals is not going to go away. But it cannot remain unregulated and PAAG is looking to responsible websites to lead the way.
PAAG has highlighted adverts including a puppy offered in a ‘swap for a mobile phone’ and a ‘fighting dog with big teeth’, along with an Arctic fox, a Zonkey (Zebra x Donkey), underage puppies and illegal breeds, a cat with an eye injury in urgent need of treatment.
Twenty years ago the main worry about the pet trade concerned young puppies and kittens being sold in pet shops. That concern hasn’t gone away but it but it pales into insignificance compared with the hundreds of thousands of pets sold on the internet every month.
Retailers urge buyers to” book an iguana quickly before stocks sell out” and offer to deliver the live animal direct to their door, anywhere in the UK. Wild and semi wild species such as fennec foxes are sold as cute curiosities. “Temperamental” pythons are offered for sale to be couriered across the country at the buyer’s expense. Elsewhere, a “possibly pregnant” guinea pig is advertised for £15 by an owner who no longer has time for her.
This is commerce and the fact that the goods are alive and sentient appears to be of secondary importance. There is no requirement on internet traders to check the knowledge and commitment of the potential new owner. This is what leads to puppies and kittens dying young, after what may have been a terrible start in life, and to the high mortality of many “exotic” pets in their new homes. Too often, it ends in further adverts from owners desperately trying to sell on animals such as iguanas that have grown large, frightening and aggressive. And if no-one will take on their former “pet”, what will happen to it?
OneKind has been lobbying for a wholesale review of the Pet Animals Act (which dates from 1951, four years before the inventor of the World Wide Web was even born) for almost ten years now. We were promised a review under the animal welfare legislation passed in 2006, and we’re still waiting.
Government is slow, the internet is fast, and those animals being traded today on the internet are at risk of leading short, miserable lives. That is why the PAAG intervention – pragmatic, evidence-based and drawing on expertise from a wide range of sectors - is a significant, essential step forward.
For case studies showing the shocking impact of inappropriate online advertising on members of the public, the veterinary profession and animal welfare authorities, visit the PAAG website. And for more information about OneKind’s Pet Origins campaign to reform pet vending legislation, see our campaign pages.