2015-13 – Pregnancy declaration documents for livestock exports

20 November 2015

Species: Livestock

Country: All countries

Relevant to:

Department Regional Managers
Department Live Animal Export Officers
LiveCorp
Registered Premises Operators
Australian Government Accredited Veterinarians - Livestock

Issue

The department has received pregnancy declarations from Australian Government Accredited Veterinarians (AAVs) who have not physically performed the pregnancy examination for several livestock export consignments.

The department views any pregnancy declarations made by persons other than the pregnancy testers who have physically conducted the examination, as misleading. Penalties can be applied to those found failing to comply with this requirement.

Purpose

The purpose of this Export Advisory Notice is to notify that only the registered veterinarian or competent pregnancy tester performing the physical pregnancy examination should be signing a declaration.

‘Pregnancy tester’ will be used to refer to both registered veterinarians and competent pregnancy testers in this document, noting that competent pregnancy testers are only permitted to perform examinations for feeder/slaughter cattle being prepared for export in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Instructions

A declaration must be completed by pregnancy testers attesting compliance with the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock (ASEL) (see Table 1 below). The results must be provided against the NLIS identification number for cattle or relevant identification numbers for other species, for all animals being pregnancy tested. If more than one pregnancy tester has been employed, a declaration from each tester must be provided.

The exporter must keep all declarations made and provide these to the department for each consignment.

In addition, if an AAV does not perform physical examination but has other pregnancy testers working under him/her to carry out this work, both the AAV and exporter must hold all the declarations made by the pregnancy testers who have physically examined the animals.

In order to comply with the above requirements, all pregnancy declarations must include the following statement confirming that the person making the statement physically examined the animals:

I, [Name of pregnancy tester], confirm that I have pregnancy tested the [animals part of LNC-xxx] and have provided the results of the test for each animal against their individual NLIS number for cattle / relevant identification numbers for other species.

If an AAV is supervising the preparation of the consignment without performing physical examination of the animals, an additional declaration made by the AAV must include the following statement:

I, [Name of AAV], declare that I hold all the declarations made by the pregnancy testers who have physically examined the [animals part of LNC-xxx] and I declare that all procedures have been carried out in accordance with ASEL requirements.

The following table provides the ASEL standards for market and species specific requirements for pregnancy testing. These standards also include the qualifications required for veterinarians who carry out pregnancy testing:

Background

ASEL requires all female livestock being prepared for any market to be pregnancy tested within the 30 day period before export.

The following webpage provides more information with regard to livestock export veterinary requirements and auditing.

Narelle Clegg
Assistant Secretary
Live Animal Exports Branch
Exports Division
Department of Agriculture and Water Resources

Contact officer: Madusha Weeratunga     
Ph: 02-6272 2107
Email: Madusha Weeratunga