Latvian Association of Veterinarians (LVB) does not support the proposal for amendments to the Veterinary Medicine Law that provide for total and mandatory “microchipping” and registration of all cats in Latvia.
The legislative draft is currently in review in the Saeima.
“First of all we need to resolve the existing problems related to the registration of dogs. We also need to improve dog registration control, because stray dogs present much higher risks to society,” LVB chairman Ilmārs Dūrītis comments.
He stresses that if domestic cat runs away, it will not create a burden for taxpayers – if this animal is caught, it will be “chipped” and registered. The animal’s owner will need to pay for that.
According to LVB, mandatory general “microchipping” will not resolve the problem of stray cats in countryside regions, where they often suffer from carnivores – foxes. “One of the main goals behind animal registration is helping missing animals find their way back to their owner.”
LVB believes “chipipng” and registration is supported for cats that are released on the street, traveling, participating in exhibitions and other public events, during which the risk of the animal disappearing increases. In this case, the presence of a registered microchip would allow the animal to get home to the owner more quickly. Identification of the animal is also important when reproducing and offering to buy a cat. Such a procedure is also proposed in the draft of the European Commission regulation, which is planned to be approved by 2025: cats be bred and offered for sale will have to be tagged and registered with a microchip. It would also mean banning cat sales ads if the cat is not registered in the Agricultural Data Centre register with its own unique microchip.
So far Saeima Economic, Agricultural, Environmental and Regional Policy Committee has not been able to explain why all old, domestic and sterilised rural cats should undergo mandatory “microchipping”, LVB notes.
“Although the health risk for cats is reduced to a minimum from “microchipping”, because only veterinarians have the right to perform this medical procedure, the pain and stress the poor animal is pointlessly subjected to is unjustified,” says Dūrītis.
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Latvian Association of Veterinarians against proposal for total “microchipping” for cats
