Matthew Offord – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Offord on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the CITES Management Authority has declared that the Cayman Turtle Farm is a humane facility.

George Eustice

The elected government of the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, has devolved constitutional responsibility for animal welfare and conservation including for legislation and policies governing the Cayman Turtle Farm.

An independent investigation in 2002, carried out in support of an application to register the Cayman Turtle Farm as a captive-breeding operation under CITES, a Convention for which Defra is responsible, concluded that the standards of care at the Cayman Turtle Farm were humane.

The UK Government has been in contact with the Cayman Islands Government more recently, expressing the UK’s commitment to raising animal welfare standards and requesting an assurance that the Cayman Islands Government takes the findings of a report by the then World Society for the Protection of Animals seriously and be committed to making appropriate improvements. I am pleased to say that the Deputy Premier of the Cayman Islands, Mr Kirkconnell, gave that assurance in a response to the Secretary of State on 24 October 2013.

The UK CITES Management Authority has not made a recent assessment of whether the Cayman Turtle Farm is a humane facility.