Legislation Affecting Aviculture A Brief Report By Laurella Desborough November, 20008 From time to time, legislators propose laws at the state and federal level which will have an effect on aviculture. In addition, from time to time, the animal rights groups bring sit against a government agency to force them to take some action under a particular law which is not what we bird keepers and breeders might want. Following are two recent instances of such events: a proposed law, H.R.5360 and the lawsuit brought against the USDA/APHIS to force the USDA to inspect facilities dealing with birds, rats and mice under the Animal Welfare Act. First, the Animal Welfare Act in its original form does include phrases which include dealers...("any person in commerce who buys, sells, negotiates sales, or transports..."). The definition of dealer includes the definition of breeder ("breeding for the wholesale pet trade"..."for use as a pet"). For many years the USDA did not regulate or inspect rats, mice and birds. In the eighties, animal rights groups sued in court to force the USDA to regulate those creatures. The lawsuit failed. Recently, a more well prepared lawsuit was successfully conducted against the USDA to force them to regulate birds, rats and mice under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The settlement included the agreement that USDA would define the word animal to include birds, rats and mice. This action would require staff and funding to complete. The biomedical research community successfully prevailed upon Congress to gain their support in NOT providing an appropriation for funding that definition in the present budget appropriations package. The budget has been approved by the House and the Senate and awaits the President's signature. When signed into law, the budget will provide no funds to fulfill the lawsuit agreement, and thus, next year there will be no work put forward on redoing the definition of animal, which is the first step to restructuring the regulations under the AWA to include rats, mice and birds. We are safe for one more year. If a new Congress decides to fund the work of the USDA to define animal to include rats, mice and birds, that will be the beginning of a long road toward having aviary inspections by USDA veterinarians for everyone with anything other than a very small aviary. The USDA would then rewrite the definition of animal and write a proposed regulation regarding research facilities handling rats, mice and birds. Eventually, regulations would be proposed for the standards expected in aviaries and for the inspection of aviaries. When the USDA publishes proposed regulations regarding birds in the Federal Register, there will be a comment period. At that time bird breeders can bring forward information which would be of relevance to those regulations. By law, the USDA must take into account the information provided in the comments. This means they must modify the regulations or they must present the reasons why they will not modify them. (Note: When the animal rights groups do not achieve what they want in the way of a specific law, they then go to the courts and sue to gain their desired ends. When the Wild Bird Conservation Act was passed in 1992, CITES level III birds were excluded from the regulations prohibiting import (most parrots are on CITES II or I). This was in accordance with what Congress had in mind, as level III birds are not considered to be rare or endangered in the wild. However, the animal rights groups do not want any birds imported for any reason and brought suit against U.S. Fish and Wildlife service. The lawsuit was settled in their favor and all CITES III birds are now prohibited from import. These people will not stop until they have us totally surrounded by regulations and prohibitions.) H.R.5360 was introduced into the House of Representatives on October 3, 2000, by Congressman Pombo and Congressman Lantos. This simple straightforward bill may be viewed on line. The purpose of the bill is to fund a comprehensive survey at all state and federal laws that regulate private ownership of exotic animals (the word animals always includes birds unless they are specifically omitted). Furthermore, the bill directs that recommendations will be made on the basis of what the survey reveals. Congressman Lantos is well liked by the animal rights groups as he has supported many of their issues. The bill itself is not a problem. What can come out of the evaluation could be a very serious problem. For example, if the survey reveals that whole segments of the exotic animal breeding industry are not presently regulated (read bird breeders here), we can be sure that our helpful animal rights groups will be proposing legislation to do that very thing. As the Humane Society of the United States representatives have stated ... "We want our agenda on the desks of every Congressman!" With a full time team of 10 lobbyists in Washington, I am sure they will go far in this effort. What can we do about this bill? Each one of us can read it...note the committees it will be heard in, communicate with those committee members, most especially if we happen to be a constituent of the Congressman on the committee, and ask some questions about the purpose of this bill and its usefulness, always politely, of course. Top

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