Study reveals flaws in animal protection laws

The animal protection system in Aotearoa is ineffective, underfunded, and at risk of collapse, according to new research.

University of Auckland law scholar associate professor Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere warns that without major reform, animals will continue to suffer harm without adequate legal consequences.

His doctoral thesis with the University of Alberta, which compares New Zealand’s system with Alberta, Canada, identifies deep structural flaws. These include overlapping responsibilities, jurisdictional confusion, and a reliance on the SPCA - an under-resourced charity - to carry out much of the enforcement.

“The effect of this enforcement gap is clear: breaches of animal welfare laws go consistently undetected and under-prosecuted,” says Rodriguez Ferrere.

“Not only does this directly harm animals, but it weakens the deterrent effect of the law, allowing a cycle of neglect and cruelty to continue. In this way, animal welfare underenforcement frustrates the rule of law.”

A lack of financial support for the sector has resulted in inadequate training for animal protection officers, reactive and delayed enforcement, and areas where no enforcement occurs at all.

In New Zealand, three agencies - police, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), and Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) – theoretically share responsibility for enforcing the Animal Welfare Act. But in reality, that enforcement falls to the MPI and the SPCA and neither of them, Rodriguez Ferrere argues, have the resources to do the job effectively.

“The SPCA has been given the responsibility to enforce animal welfare legislation with regards to companion animals, even though police and MPI also have jurisdiction,” he says. “It’s a strange quirk of our system that we rely on a charity with limited funding to do this work. They do their best, but it’s not working.”

He believes New Zealand should consider removing enforcement responsibilities from the SPCA, which remains one of the few charities in the world still conducting private animal welfare prosecutions. Instead, he argues that their expertise could be shifted to state-funded enforcement bodies dedicated to animal welfare.

“The SPCA has done an amazing job, despite limited resources, but our reliance on private enforcement is outdated and the biggest flaw in the system,” he says. “We need a specialised animal welfare unit within the police.”

Rodriguez Ferrere also sees broader issues at play, linking New Zealand’s weak enforcement to institutional speciesism. He says people prioritise the interests of their own species, while treating other animals as ‘property’.

“The legal classification of animals as property is speciesism in action,” he says. “As long as animals are treated as commodities, their well-being is directly linked to the value they represent to their owners and society.”

While removing the property status of animals would be too radical a shift, Rodriguez Ferrere says a more immediate and achievable step is to strengthen regulatory enforcement. A properly funded police unit focused on animal welfare, he argues, would go a long way toward ensuring the law is upheld. Such a unit operates within the city of Edmonton, Alberta, with significant success.