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posted by CoolHand on Friday May 15 2015, @01:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the dastardly-dogs-down-under dept.

Adam Taylor writes in the Washington Post that Australia's threat to kill Boo and Pistol, two dogs that belong to the American movie star Johnny Depp unless they leave the country by Saturday has made headlines around the world. But the logic behind the threat is typical for Australia, which has some of the strictest animal quarantine laws in the world.

According to the Australian Department of Agriculture, dogs can be imported to Australia but are required to spend at least 10 days in quarantine in the country. There are also a whole variety of other restrictions on the dogs – they can only come from an approved country, they cannot be pregnant, and they must not be a banned breed. The dogs are then required to undergo a variety of tests and be fully vaccinated and microchipped. It's a time-consuming, expensive and complicated process that serves one purpose. Australia is one of a relatively small number of countries around the world that are considered rabies-free. "The reason you can walk through a park in Brisbane and not have in the back of your mind, 'What happens if a rabid dog comes out and bites me or bites my kid,' is because we've kept that disease out," says Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce.

[More after the break.]

Australia's geographical distance from much of the rest of the world and its relatively late contact with the West means that its biological ecosystem is unlike those of many other nations. To protect this, the country restricts what can be brought into the country. The impact of alien species on Australian wildlife was made clear early in the 20th century, when the cane toad, indigenous to Central and South America, was introduced to north Queensland in the hope of controlling the local cane beetle population. While the toads had little impact on the beetle population, they unexpectedly thrived in their new environment. Their effects on Australia's ecology include the depletion of native species that die eating cane toads; the poisoning of pets and humans; depletion of native fauna preyed on by cane toads; and reduced prey populations for native insectivores, such as skinks. The population of a few thousand cane toads introduced in 1935 is now in the millions, and are now considered pests that the Australian government is trying to eradicate.

Depp isn't the only American celebrity to run afoul of Australian biosecurity laws. In 2013, a Katy Perry album that featured flower seeds in its packaging triggered a biosecurity alert from Australia's Agriculture Department. "Most people are excited to think that there's an attachment between biosecurity and someone as popular as Katy Perry," said Vanessa Findlay, Australia's chief plant protection officer.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2015, @04:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2015, @04:27PM (#183389)

    He was a teenager at the time.
    The cat came out of it no worse for wear and lived a long healthy life in paradise.