Animal care and protection legislation in relation to KBCB-WPSQ -
Procedures and requirements for our conduct of animal studies

Background

The Queensland Government is committed to ensuring that all animals in Queensland have appropriate standards of welfare. Queensland Primary
Industries and Fisheries (QPI&F) (part of the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation) is the government’s lead agency for
animal welfare activities in Queensland. The agency develops, monitors and enforces animal welfare policy, legislation and standards, and educates the
community about animal welfare.

This article aims to explain how this legislation affects the carrying out of studies of animals such as the wildlife contacted during Fish Snapshots, frog
and bird studies in Kedron Brook catchment. Reference links are given throughout and readers should use and read these web pages to ensure they
have full understanding of the legislation and how it might apply to themselves and associated organisations. Our Branch's policy for the conduct of
animal studies within our catchment is being developed as a guide to ensure that attendees at our Branch activities understand these legislative
requirements when they apply.

Perhaps the simplest path is to follow the DPI&F web site references, particularly, The guide to the use of animals for scientific purposes. If you intend
to use an animal (or allow an animal to be used) for scientific purposes, you must (amongst other things):

• first register this intention with the DPI&F
• have that use approved through a written proposal to an animal ethics committee
• fill out approved forms appropriately
• pay significant fees to DPI&F and
• send animal use statistics reports to the DPI&F at prescribed times.

A key question to be determined is whether you actually are a person who is deemed to use an animal for a scientific purpose. A special Q & A web page
set up to answer such questions is Frequently asked questions - animals used for scientific purposes - animal ethics. Follow the link chain, particularly to
FAQs - What types of animal use activities need approval? and then to the question, Do I need AEC approval for my 'observational' activity with wildlife?, the answer to which is very useful in explaining interacting factors that influence our requirements.

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Do I need AEC approval for my 'observational' activity with wildlife?

This latter section of the Q & A web page gives examples of different situations and advises whether the legislation applies. The following is extracted for
convenience but readers should refer to the actual web page for the whole answer. Three possible outcomes are examined:

• Visual observation, not including spotlighting*
e.g. bird watching and whale watching from public beach using the naked eye or binoculars

• Recording observations, note taking*
• Photographic, sound or digital recording*
• Collecting faeces (scats) and shed feathers*
• Searching for and recording animal tracks*
• Use of shallow sand pans to record animal tracks*
• No abnormal disruption of habitat
e.g. walking, remaining or driving in places to which people typically have that type of access such as public or national parks, tracks and
roadsides, farmland. * only where this activity does not involve abnormal disruption of habitat

• Any activity for scientific purposes in which a person causes or permits an animal to be acquired, bred, cared for, disposed of or otherwise used
• Spotlighting or using light sources more powerful than a domestic torch for the purposes of visual observation to collect scientific data (as
  opposed to hunting)
• Trapping of animals (Elliot, pitfall, nets etc)
• Using call playback to stimulate responses by animals
• Use of hair tubes to detect presence of animals
• Identifying animals by means of marking or placing on or in the animal any form of identifying mark or object e.g. includes paint or other external
  marker, microchipping, trimming hair, banding and tagging, toe clipping, ear punching
• Abnormal disruption of habitat e.g. turning over logs, entering or remaining in places that people do not normally access such as virgin forest,
  protected ecosystems, bird rookeries.

• bird-watching study that includes spotlighting or playback of bird calls
• wildlife survey involving trapping of animals in Elliot traps, pitfall traps, cage traps or nets
• reptile and amphibian survey where lizards and frogs are caught by hand, examined and released
• survey using hair tubes to identify mammals at development sites.

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Our Branch's policy for the conduct of animal studies

People conducting any studies affecting animals within our Branch program should be fully aware of the legislation as referenced above, and ensure they
comply fully with the requirements. Until a broad approach registration system has been set up for Brisbane community wildlife organisations, particularly
our own, all of our observations and measurements must be conducted in a way that would not require registration. Thus, we ensure our activities, in
themselves, do not 'use animals for scientific purposes' as exampled within the Q and A detailed within the section above.

It follows that:

1. Our bird studies may be conducted without prior registration, approval, or reporting, by our community wildlife groups that conduct a bird watching study
(using naked eye and binoculars only) along set pathways in public parks and farmland to document species present and population sizes. This activity
must not include spotlighting (using light sources more powerful than a domestic torch), playback of bird calls, or abnormal disruption of habitat.

2. Likewise, our own frog biodiversity interest group may record frog sounds and sightings including photographs, say at a creek, from public track in
national park or urban parkland. Frogs may not be caught by hand, examined and released, nor can spotlighting be used for the purposes of visual
observation, or abnormal disruption of habitat.

3. Fish Snapshots require the trapping of water animals for identification purposes and therefore cannot be carried out without the registration, approval
and reporting mandatory with the legislation. However, it should be possible in the interim, to conduct water quality studies alone providing:

a) No water is extracted from the creek. Water quality measurements should be performed with the use of a Horiba Probe (electronic water
quality tester) that measures a range of useful parameters such as temperature, pH, turbidity, etc. No significant disruption of aquatic
lifeforms should occur by appropriate use of this probe when it is lowered directly into the running creek water from a high bank.
b) There must be no obtrusive access to aquatic life within the water (no traps or devices to be used to obtain samples of living matter)
Other related activities are to be carried out in a manner that does not obtrude on the welfare of aquatic wildlife. These may include
observations of creek bank habitat, assessment of weeds and native flora, and estimation of the profile of the creek.

In no circumstance can there be abnormal disruption of habitat e.g. turning over logs, entering or remaining in places that people do not normally access
such as virgin forest, protected ecosystems, or bird rookeries.

4. Macro-invertebrate studies don't appear to come under the present legislation. Based upon the following definition from the legisation, it would appear that the macro-invertebrate component of Down at Your Local Creek may be able to continue.

Definition: Under the Queensland Animal Care and Protection Act 2001, an animal is any live vertebrate including amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and reptiles. Animals also include live pre-natal or pre-hatched creatures in the last half of gestation, e.g. a mammalian or reptilian foetus, pre-hatched avian, mammalian or reptilian young and live marsupial young. However, invertebrates of the class Cephalopoda (eg octopus & squid) or the class Malacostraca (crabs, crayfish, prawns, etc.) are also covered by the Act and therefore must not be caught for survey purposes in the same way as other animals, unless a permit has been granted. However a human being or human foetus is not an animal, nor are the eggs, spat or spawn of fish.

So insects and macro-invertebrates aren't defined as being animals, although we still like them and consider them vitally important indicators for waterway health!

Any queries about these requirements or procedures relating to the study of animals should be referred to a member of our in advance of any related activity.

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Further web site references

The following web site links give further information about the legislation.

Queensland's animal welfare law This web page gives an overview of the four main aims of this legislation together to a broad range of links including an overview of Animal Care and Protection Act 2001 (ACPA), points at the Codes of practice for the welfare of animals, and gives information about offences, penalties and animal ethics.

Animal Care and Protection Act compulsory codes In particular, this page references and links to the Animal Care and Protection Act 2001 (ACPA),
the Animal Care and Protection Regulation 2002, and other compulsory codes of practice are given in the Animal Care and Protection Act compulsory codes.

Animal welfare and ethics This covers how the agency develops, monitors and enforce animal welfare policy, legislation and standards, and educates the community about animal welfare.

Related organisations & contacts provides the useful links for information only without necessarily endorsing the views or content of these websites.

Final word

At the 28 January meeting of the Brisbane Catchments Network, Dr. Lex Turner, Acting Principal Project Officer (DPI&F Animal Ethics), Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, presented "A discussion on legislation concerning animal ethics". He pointed out that organisations or even individuals carrying out use of animals for scientific purposes should apply to meet the requirements of the legislation.

He added that it was worth consideration for larger organisations to cover the more general community environmental groups needs by taking responsibility for the administration of relevant legislative requirements for those smaller groups or sections already dependant or directly influenced by the overall arching body. Discussion followed that suggested that Local Councils could set up guidelines, procedures and administrative systems so that small groups such as bushcare groups and catchment organisations would not have to directly handle the registration applications and their relatively large costs. They would have to prepare suitable written proposals for any animal usage and report the required records of animal use statistics via the relevant Council.

Cr Peter Matic, Chairman of the Environment, Parks and Sustainability (BCC), attending this meeting, said he would arrange for this possibility to be considered by the Council. Dr. Lex Turner said that the DPI&F Animal ethics committee would give priority to facilitating any such moves by the Council. The representatives of the catchment groups at the meeting expressed concern at any delays since the value of existing survey programs depended, amongst other things, upon continuance of the existing data collection (Fish Snapshot and so on) for useful statistical conclusions.