Wild animal translocations: animal welfare risk assessment guidance

4. Who should oversee the risk assessment process?

Some of the existing frameworks for wild animal translocations require the completion of a licence application and meeting certain conditions (sometimes set out in a code), which are evaluated by the competent authority. However, animal welfare conditions are generally less detailed and may not be reviewed by experts in this field, possibly indicating a historic disjunction between conservation and animal welfare. It is commonplace now to submit disease risk assessments (DRA) for the reintroduction of a species to a new area/habitat as laid out, for example, in OIE/IUCN 2014 disease control guidelines (OIE/IUCN, 2014), and this is a good analogy for the proposed animal welfare risk assessment. DRAs and any welfare assessments may currently be undertaken in parallel, given the link between minimising stress partly to reduce disease impacts, but a contemporary welfare assessment encompasses far more than this alone. It is recognised that the assessment of the welfare of wildlife species is in its infancy, so the proposed risk assessment framework is likely to evolve as evidence linking observable indices with an individual’s welfare state becomes available. It is also clear that there will be large differences between species in this regard and that individual species’ evidence-based assessments may not often be available or cost-effective to create. In addition, even within a species, depending on the source population (wild-caught versus captive-bred for example), significant variations in an individual’s response to its translocation management and release will occur based on its previous life experiences and personality traits. Therefore, in many cases, expert elicitation or careful assessment of individuals prior to release may be needed to produce the most accurate picture.

It is proposed that a specific animal welfare risk assessment should accompany any licence request and be reviewed by the competent authority or another independent body, as long as that authority or body includes animal welfare expertise. In Scotland, NatureScot, given sufficient resources, would be the appropriate body to oversee the process when assessing all aspects of conservation translocations, and need to make its decision against the backdrop of the over-arching climate and biodiversity crisis.