THE VETERINARY Services yesterday confirmed that electronic animal identification would be compulsory for animals brought in the country from July.
Microchipping has been going on for some time on the island already, but local vets told the Cyprus Mail the method was used mainly for animals being sent to EU countries, where animal identification was a prerequisite for entry.
A veterinary surgeon said the method was simple and very useful.
“The chip is implanted between the animal’s shoulder blades under the skin,” he said.
“It only takes a few seconds and can only be removed surgically, whereas tattoo identification can be altered.
“The chip will contain the animal’s identification number, name and health status, as well as the owner’s address and telephone number. The information would then be read using special scanners used by the Veterinary Services and the Game Service as well as veterinarians, and will be entered in a database.
“We have already started microchipping animals, especially those destined for EU countries, where laws there demand that animals brought in be microchipped.
The vet said the £20 procedure would help government services clamp down on the illegal sale of animals and help locate owners who abandoned their cats or dogs.
“It will help control strays, it will reduce the theft of animals and it will also help government services to locate and punish people who abandon their animals,” he said.
“With the microchip, the services would immediately know who the owner is and where he or she lives.”
Dr Christodoulos Pipis of the Veterinary Services said the relevant legislation, based on an EU directive, would be put into effect this summer.
“It’s up to us to implement the EU directive earlier, but for now it’s scheduled to be put in effect by July,” he said.
“Until the year 2010, dog owners will be allowed to have their dogs’ identification tattooed on the animal, but after that they would have to microchip them.”
Pipis said that, in later stages, the Veterinary Services would implement another plan that would see the microchip used as a means to control the population, clamp down on thefts and the illegal trading of the animals.
“This way we will be able to know whether stray dogs for example had come from the north, where we are not sure about the control of parasites like echinococcus,” he said.
“But owners do not have to microchip their animals if they are staying on the island, there is no law that will force them to do so for the time being.”
