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<p>Currently the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) holds data on the total number
of animals entering Great Britain under the Pet Travel Scheme, and the number of animals
that failed the compliance checks.</p><p> </p><p>APHA stopped recording the country
of origin of compliant animals imported under the scheme in 2016. Detailed data on
non-compliant pet animals, including the country in which the paperwork accompanying
the animal was issued, is always collected.</p><p> </p><p>In previous years the country
of origin data was taken from a legacy database (Pets database) which was deployed
in 2006 when the throughput of pet animals was much lower. Pet carriers recorded details
of pet animals entering Great Britain, including the country of origin.</p><p> </p><p>APHA
introduced a new system to establish the quality of the submitted data available from
the Pets Database. This new system more accurately records the number of pet animals
entering the country but does not record the country in which the paperwork was issued
or the country the animal travelled from.</p><p> </p><p>When the new system was introduced
to verify throughput figures it was identified that recording the country of origin
for compliant animals would place an undue burden on the carriers given the volume
of pets travelling (the number of pets entering Great Britain has increased from 91,308
in 2006 to 336,446 in 2018).</p><p> </p><p>Collecting the country of origin data for
compliant pet imports has not proved useful in deterring puppy smuggling as it is
essentially collecting information on legal movements; however APHA are looking at
how this data could be accurately collected in the future and the likely costs that
would be involved.</p><p> </p><p>There is no legal requirement for the country of
origin to be recorded, and we always relied on the good will of the carriers to record
this information.</p><p> </p>
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