Proposed Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines – Exhibited Animals Consultation Regulation Impact Statement March 2014

A3.8 – Unquantifiable incremental cost of ensuring enclosures allow for expression of appropriate natural behaviours – S3.6

Under proposed standard S3.6, the operator must ensure that enclosures allow for the expression of appropriate natural behaviours of the animals in those enclosures. However, due to the variability of needs between different species within groupings, it is not possible to estimate the incremental cost of enclosure modification across the industry in terms of the general standards. The total number of non-walk through display enclosures affected assuming 5% non-compliance with the proposed standard, is estimated to be about 420 in total, as shown in Table A3.14.

A3.9 – Incremental cost of providing public information – S3.8

Proposed standard S3.8 specifies that an operator must provide all visitors with accurate information relating to animals within an enclosure, including identification of the species. This would entail a one off cost for walk through or display enclosures at $10 per plaque per enclosure and would be required for 5% of relevant enclosures apart from NSW where this is already a requirement under the ‘base case’. Also it is assumes that large facilities would already comply with this clause under the base case. The estimated one-off cost of providing public information about enclosure animals under proposed standard S3.8 would be $3,037 (see Table A3.15).

As shown in Table A3.16, the estimated one-off cost of providing public information under proposed standard S3.8 over 10 years would be $2,838 in present value 2012-13 dollars with 72.33% of the cost incurred by medium size facilities.