Legislation – What’s Hot                                                                                                                      Kelly Crouch, CFA Legislative Information Liaison November 2019

Mandatory Microchipping Law Development: the Proposed Honolulu, HI Ordinance

Mandatory microchipping laws started as singular mandates to chip pets, but the Honolulu ordinance would add three more mandates and associated reporting requirements to the original formula. With these additional mandates come more issues for affected pet owners. While CFA supports voluntary microchipping, there are too many opportunities for failure in every aspect of the system to support the legislatively mandated use of the technology alone or with additional requirements.

The technology failures include reported health issues, failure or migration of the chip, an improper scan not revealing a microchip, universal scanners that are not really universal, and different countries require microchips of different frequencies which can be problematic along the border or in imported animals. Registering databases may not have up to date information, or the chip may not be registered at all. In the U.S., it can be something of a scavenger hunt to find registration information because of the large number of registries. There is also the misguided notion that registration of a chip is proof of ownership. By itself, the chip registration is only evidence, not proof, of ownership. Similarly, writing your name in a jacket found at the park only shows possession at some point, not ownership. The microchip system can be a valuable resource to pet owners, but it is in no means failsafe.

These weaknesses of the microchip system make expanding on the original formula of stand-alone microchipping mandates deceptively attractive to well-meaning lawmakers. Some of these developments include requiring shelters to chip pets before reuniting them with their owners or placing them in new homes, mandating registration with a private registry, and mandating registration with a local animal control agency. Although these issues have shown up in local ordinances and the occasional state bill, it may be premature to label these developments trends just yet.

Requiring public animal control agencies and shelters to microchip cats and dogs before releasing them to their owners or placing them in new homes was recently considered in California. Senate Bill 64 passed both houses of the legislature in 2019 but was vetoed by the governor. While supportive of the objective to reduce euthanasia, Governor Gavin Newson recognized the burden the legislation might cause for people struggling to meet the basic costs of pet care. A previous attempt to impose these requirements on shelters and rescues in 2011 with S.B. 701, was also vetoed by then Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr citing local authority to make such mandates and pay for them if the local jurisdiction chose to pass such a law.

Alternatively, combining the microchip mandate with the requirement that pet owners must register the chip with a private registry is the choice made by the San Antonio, Texas city council. This option introduces a different set of problems. New companies start-up, and others go out of business, possibly without notice to their clients. A single microchip number can be registered to multiple people which may be deliberate or the result of duplicated microchip numbers. Breeders often list themselves as the primary contact with the owner as the alternate contact. Also, with all the registration companies in the U.S., it is unrealistic to expect animal control to know and contact each of them for every lost pet.

There are also issues with the requirement that owners must register their pet’s chip with animal control. By requiring a cat owner to register with animal control the mandate essentially becomes a cat licensing program. Cat owners may question the value of the program since cats do not benefit from licensing as much as dogs. According to a 2010 survey, only 2% of cats were reunited with their owners through a shelter. Instead, 75% of cats usually returned home on their own or were found in searches by their owners. (Weiss, Frequency of Lost Dogs and Cats in the United States and the Methods Used to Locate Them, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/2/2/301)

The proposed Honolulu ordinance incorporates all three of these additional mandates. With all of these additional mandates and the associated reporting requirements, the ordinance introduces yet another issue. It subjects pet owners to overly complicated regulations that invite unintentional violations. The combination of all these issues should override any wellmeant intentions behind the proposed ordinance.

Recent CFA Legislative Group Blog Posts, October 2019, Legislation – What’s Hot . . . . New Hampshire: Pet Vendor Update Eureka (Humboldt County,) California: Limits, Cattery Licensing, and Irresponsible Pet Owner