The Executive Yuan Council today passed a draft amendment to the Animal Protection Act whose main points are as follows:
1. The exception to the ban on certain methods of capturing animals—which allowed the use of these methods if approved by the competent authority—is revoked in favor of total prohibition. (Article 14-1)
2. To complement the above revision and further discourage the use of these banned hunting methods, penalties for their employment have been raised. (Article 30)
This amendment will be sent to the Legislature for deliberation.
According to the Council of Agriculture (COA), Article 14-1 was added to the act in 2008, listing banned animal-capturing methods in order to prevent hunters from employing them while at the same time clearly stating that if their use was necessary, permission from the competent authority would first need to be granted.
However, no citizen has ever applied for permission to employ one of these methods, and the spirit of animal protection leaves practically no room for the competent authority to assent to their use regardless.
Meanwhile, cases of clamps (leghold traps) disabling cats and dogs have attracted a great deal of public attention, so the COA in March 2011 announced it would orient its policy toward comprehensively banning them. After deliberations on how to strengthen relevant management, the agency decided to eliminate the exception to the ban on inappropriate hunting methods and to increase the fine for their usage.
The animal capturing methods proscribed by Article 14-1 are as follows:
1. Explosives
2. Toxic substance
3. Electricity
4. Corrosive substance
5. Firearms other than the tranquilizer gun
6. Clamps (leghold traps)
7. Other methods banned by the competent authority through announcement.