Ms Maddie Doyle:

We had experience with a pound operator a number of years ago when animals were seized by that pound. It is not the current or previous operator, this is just to give an idea. The chips that were inserted into those animals when they were seized by that operator were not actually compliant with Department of agriculture rules on approved microchips. They inserted those chips in the animal as a way of recording the intake and that the animal had come in. They were tagged and there was now a number on a document to record that animal.

When it came to passporting that animal, however, that chip was not approved. If we took animals from that contractor and rescued them from that pound, we would have to insert a second microchip to get that animal a passport and that animal now has two chips. That is one example of how they end up with multiple chips.