Fife Council Animal Health Officers carry out a range of duties and activities enforcing the following areas of the legislation:
- Controls on the spread of animal diseases
- Animal identification and movement
- Animal import controls
- Animal welfare
- Animal feed hygiene
Animal Health Officers help the farming community to meet their obligations towards the health and welfare of livestock. They:
- inspect farms, markets and shows;
- investigate complaints of animal cruelty in commercial premises;
- assist with feed hygiene registration,
- and carry out on-farm inspections.
Animal health
Animal health is important because major outbreaks of diseases, particularly on livestock farms can have the following implications:
- Serious welfare problems for affected animals
- Huge effect on business and the economy
- Certain diseases can be passed on to the human population
Examples of animal diseases are foot and mouth, swine fever, rabies, anthrax, sheep scab and avian influenza.
Find more information on these and disease control at the Scottish Government website under Animal Diseases: Notifiable Diseases and Non-Notifiable Diseases.
Animal Health Officers help enforce the legislation which is in place to prevent and control the spread of animal disease, but they also offer advice to businesses that are involved with animals. The majority of the work involves farms, and dog and cat importation.
An important area for compliance checks is controlling identification and movement on farms, at markets and shows and the officers assist farmers in meeting their obligations in this respect.
Animal welfare
Animal Health Officers enforce the legislation that protects the welfare of animals.
The majority of their work applies to farms, zoos and businesses involved with horses and pet animals.
Officers will respond to complaints regarding animal welfare.
The Scottish Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals may also respond to such complaints.
Importing animals
Animal Health Officers will respond to complaints about illegally imported pets.
They will also give advice on the PETS travel scheme and animal passports.
Non-compliance may result in the animal in question being placed in quarantine, returned to the country of origin or destroyed. Owners will be charged for this.
