Stray animals and the Animal Welfare Act

The Animal Welfare Act 1999 has provisions for re-homing certain types of animals where their ownership is unclear. We commonly think of these animals as stray, and they are often found by a person and given to an organisation or individual that rescues and rehomes stray animals. The re-homing laws in the Animal Welfare Act do not apply to those animals that have been relinquished to an organisation or person by an owner, native animals, or animals considered stock (e.g., horses, cattle, deer, pigs, donkeys, goats etc). There are additional considerations under the Dog Control Act 1996 for a dog you take into your care for 72 hours or more.

The provisions in the Animal Welfare Act 1999 to re-home companion animals, such as cats, dogs, or rabbits, are specified only for those designated as an ‘approved organisations’ (defined in section 2 of the Act, detailed in section 121 and 122). SPCA and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) are currently the only approved organisations at this time (although the New Zealand Police can use their powers to enforce the Animal Welfare Act in regard to criminal offending). Approved organisations have legal obligations and protections when it comes to managing stray animals. SPCA is audited annually by MPI to ensure we meet our obligations for our approved organisation status.

As an approved organisation, SPCA is legally required to follow section 141 of the Animal Welfare Act 1999. We must take ‘reasonable steps’ for a minimum of seven days to find the potential owner of a stray animal we take into our care.

In practice, this means we take the following steps when a ‘stray’ animal is handed in to us:

• Check the animal for a microchip or any other identifying features.
• Advertise the animal for a minimum of seven days, including:
• Post listings on LostPet which is part of the Companion Animal New Zealand Register.
• Share profiles of found animals on our social media pages (e.g., Facebook).
• Check the lost/found listings on social media community groups.
• Check databases of people who have phoned to report their pet is missing.
• Place listings in newspapers or do flyer drops, especially if we think the animal may have a home (e.g., special breed, good condition) or an elderly owner.
• Call veterinary clinics and council pounds if there is a distinguishing feature about the animal that these places may recognise.
• If the animal has a microchip, or if the person handing the animal in thinks they may belong to a particular property, we must either deliver, or post, a notice that informs the household that we are holding an animal of this description, which we believe may be theirs, and that they have seven days to come forward for that animal.
• If the notice is hand-delivered (preferable, as you can talk to anyone who is home at the time), it expires seven days after delivery. If posted, the notice expires fourteen days after it is sent.
• If the microchip details are not current, and a visit to the address shows the owner has moved, we search databases and social media for the owners name in attempts to find them.
• We might hold an animal longer than the seven-day minimum if we are not convinced the animal is stray.

After a seven-day period where we have had not found an owner, an inspector or an auxiliary officer (as detailed in sections 124 and 125 of the Animal Welfare Act 1999) must sign off that the legal requirements have been completed for the animal before we are legally permitted to alter, re-home, or pursue otherwise appropriate options for the animal.

Each animal that comes into SPCA’s care is recorded in our in-house database. During the seven-day period we have the animal whilst we are taking reasonable steps to track down the owner, we can only provide necessary care. We can prevent or mitigate suffering by attending to traumatic injuries, disease, or severe distress, or we can take actions to prevent disease transmission to other animals in our care. We cannot perform permanent altering procedures such as de-sexing during this time.

Since all the other rescue organisations in New Zealand do not have approved organisation status as defined in the Animal Welfare Act, they do not have the legal safeguards to rehome stray animals, should an owner come forward and want to claim back an animal that has been rehomed.

Rescues and individuals can follow the legal requirements in section 141 as an exercise in good faith when rehoming a stray animal they believe is indeed without an owner. Rescues and individuals should be aware that although most of the time they rehome stray animals without issue, there may come a time where a rehomed animal must be returned to the rightful legal owner at the owner’s request. Even for SPCA, if we rehomed an animal and did not follow the process for holding stray animals according to the Animal Welfare Act 1999, we may have to return the animal to an owner who subsequently comes forward.

The laws are set by the Government and SPCA does not have the ability to pass-on our legal powers or obligations as an approved organisation.

A rescue organisation or individual could consider becoming an approved organisation as defined in the Animal Welfare Act 1999. We recommend contacting the Ministry for Primary Industries.