Report in support of the Traveling Exotic Animal and Public Safety Protection Act (TEAPSPA)

SUMMARY

The Animal Law Committee (Lori Barrett, Chair) issued a report in support of the Traveling Exotic Animal and Public Safety Protection Act (“TEAPSPA”), which would amend the Animal Welfare Act (7 U.S.C. section 2143) (“AWA”) “to restrict the use of exotic and wild animals in traveling performances.”  The AWA requires that minimum standards be provided for the care, treatment, transportation, housing, handling, purchase, and sale of certain warm-blooded animals used for research, exhibition, and commerce in order to ensure their humane treatment.  TEAPSPA would add a subsection that “prohibit[s] a person from causing the performance of, or allowing the participation of, exotic or wild animals in a traveling animal act.”  The bill provides for several exceptions, e.g., use of wild or exotic animals in non-mobile and permanent animal exhibitions on-site at accredited zoos or aquariums or at wildlife sanctuaries, by universities, laboratories and other research facilities registered with the USDA, etc.