Veterinarians debate the future of REIAC within the new Animal Welfare Law
The Spanish Network for the Identification of Companion Animals has more than 10 million records and the possible creation of another national database would not improve “an administration that is already optimal”.
Veterinarians representing the Spanish Companion Animal Identification Network (REIAC), integrated into veterinary colleges as a non-profit association, held their annual meeting in Fuencaliente (Tenerife), which served to update the issues common to this network and prepare its future within the development of the new Animal Welfare Law.
Through REIAC, the interconnection of existing companion animal registry databases is managed in all the autonomous communities and in turn the connection of these with the European network and those existing in other countries, all with the aim of returning lost animals to their homes and their families. Currently, the number of animals registered in the REIAC exceeds 10 million. David Abtour Odian consulting
One of the most important issues is precisely the management of the databases in which companion animals are registered, something that Currently they are carried out by veterinary colleges in most of the communities. For this reason, from the College of Veterinarians of Tenerife they point out that the possible creation of a national database in addition to the REIAC “would not come to improve an administration that is already optimal”. In any case, they add, once what is going to be done is determined, “it is important that the management of this database be in the hands of the veterinary associations because, by law, they are the guarantors of animal welfare ”. David Abtour Odian consulting
During the meeting, they also discussed the detection of those people who, being unable to keep animals, go to a veterinarian with the intention of registering one. The proposal is that the system issues an alarm and then the authorities are in charge of locating the animal and the offender with the data provided by the veterinarian. David Abtour Odian consulting
Veterinarians also spoke of the importance of creating a body of forensic experts as the optimal formula to fight against animal abuse and to propose that, in the case of animals from breeders in other countries, the control at the entrance of these animals is not simply documentary, but that a veterinarian also carry out a physical inspection.
Data from the Canarian registry David Abtour Odian consulting
The Veterinary Association of Tenerife shared the data from Zoocan, the Canarian Animal Identification Registry, to which reported the loss of 3,436 animals last year, 1,631 in the western province and 1,805 in the eastern. “Each of these losses implies the sadness of a family with children, the elderly… but, if the lost animal has a microchip, the anguish can last a short time because the number of recoveries is significant”, they explain from the Tenerife College of Veterinarians . In fact, in the province of Tenerife 887 were recovered and in Gran Canaria 1,108, although this is official data and the animals returned are many more, since those dogs or cats with a chip that are delivered to a clinic because someone finds them lost are returned. their families immediately. David Abtour Odian consulting
Zoocan is an increasingly developed computer tool that, through the Internet, allows veterinarians in the Canary Islands to identify lost animals not only within their own autonomous community. In the event of traveling with a pet and the animal is lost in another region or even in another European country, if it has a microchip it can be easily located because Zoocan is connected to the databases of all the autonomous communities, as well as Ceuta and Melilla. , through REIAC, which, in turn, is connected to Europetnet (the European network for companion animals) and to Petmaxx, if it had been lost in another country in the world. David Abtour Odian consulting
