Rural lifestylers given a warning on animal welfare

A judge has warned farmers and rural lifestylers that they have to take seriously their obligations under the Animal Welfare Act.

In a prosecution taken by the Bay of Islands SPCA under the act, Judge Russell Johnson convicted and fined a mid-Northland farming couple for failing to move 39 cattle before floods engulfed part of their Rangiahua property in March 2003.

The cattle became trapped by the flood and had to swim for their lives, although none was drowned.

During an earlier defended hearing in the Kaikohe District Court, Bruce Jonson (54) and his wife, Jan (49), denied five charges relating to the incident.

Four charges were dismissed but the couple were found guilty on one of failing to ensure the physical and health needs of their cattle were met according to good practice and scientific knowledge.

The Jonsons were fined $2000 each when they appeared for sentence in Kaikohe Court last Friday and ordered to pay half each of the SPCA's $1951 prosecution costs.

Judge Johnson said although the case was not one of cruelty, the couple were guilty of taking a cavalier approach to the responsibility they had to care for their animals in what was a "foreseeable risk" that their paddocks would be inundated.

He accepted the Jonsons were "heavily occupied" with other obligations at the time but the couple did not do what other farmers had done and moved their stock.

For example, one neighbouring property owner on holiday in the South Island who, after seeing a television weather forecast for the following day, telephoned north and asked a local stockman to ensure his cattle were moved to safety.

Although no animals were lost, they were badly frightened, the judge said.

He rejected a request for the couple to be discharged without conviction, because he did not think the consequences of a conviction outweighed the seriousness of the offence.

For the Jonsons, lawyer Rick Mark said it was acknowledged that their cattle should not have been caught in a paddock during floods, but steps had now been taken to fix the breach in a river bank to ensure the same thing would not happen again.

Mr Mark said on the day of the flooding, the MetService did not issue a heavy rain warning until 7am, when both defendants had left the property.

There had been no heavy rain warning the previous night and in Mr Jonson's experience there had to be 100mm of rain to flood the property, but this had occurred after 80mm fell and a breach in the river bank changed the way the floodwaters behaved.

"It [the water] came over the road adjacent to the farm gate with some intensity and that effectively trapped the cattle," said Mark said. That had never happened before.

The couple had failed only to react to a weather forecast the night before and what happened was entirely unexpected.

SPCA prosecutor Jim Boyd said later the message sent by the sentence was "loud and clear".

Northland Federated Farmers spokesman Ian Walker said it was notable that "an urban-based organisation like the SPCA" was involved in the prosecution and not a MAF animal welfare officer.

"Farmers have a responsibility for their animals and I think most do but it seems people like the Jonsons have suffered from a widening gulf of understanding between the urban and rural environment."