Working to improve animals' lives this World Animal Day

To celebrate World Animal Day (4 October), we're taking a look at amazing changes for animal welfare during the past year and what we want to achieve in the year to come.

For almost 200 years, we've been at the forefront of animal welfare and during that time have fought relentlessly for all animals to be given the quality of life they deserve. 

Throughout our history, we have achieved so much thanks to relentless campaigning, and the past 12 months have been no exception. The year has been filled with milestone victories for animal welfare as a result of legislative changes that will improve the lives of animals in the future too.

Some of this year's animal welfare legislation successes:

• In April, after years of dedicated campaigning from RSPCA teams and supporters, the UK Government passed the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill. The UK will now boast a law that will transform animal welfare by increasing sentences for animal cruelty from six months to five years. This means that animals who have suffered unbearable, unnecessary cruelty at the hands of human beings, will finally get the justice they deserve.
• In August, after more than 50 years of campaigning by the RSPCA, DEFRA and the Welsh Government announced new measures to end the live exports of farm animals for slaughter and further fattening from Great Britain and improve internal transport including reduced maximum journey times, better space allowances such as more headroom, and stricter rules during extreme weather, to raise the welfare of farm animals during transport.
• A Government consultation in England, which ended in February, proposed a ban on the keeping of primates as pets. The Welsh Government has also changed their position and is now supportive of a ban too. The RSPCA, who'd worked with other animal welfare organisations and primate rescue groups for years calling for a ban on keeping primates as pets, has welcomed the proposed ban but still has concerns about how it will work in practice.
• The Welsh Government announced its intention to ban the use of glue traps in September- after two Senedd Members tabled legislative proposals from the charity which would have outlawed the devices in Wales. The ban is expected to come into force alongside a ban on deadly snares, too, as part of an Agriculture (Wales) Bill.

And in 2021, we also launched our new strategy - Together for animal welfare - a pledge to keep up the pace of the hard work they have come to be known for. 

However, work is not done because millions of animals still need help to influence the changes in law they need to experience better lives.

Over the coming year, it's expected that animal-lovers will see further welfare improvements, including:

• Restrictions on puppy imports
• Banning the import of dogs with cropped ears and pregnant dogs
• Compulsory cat microchipping
• Mandatory method of production food labelling
• Banning the import and export of detached shark fins and the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals abroad
• Ban on the import of Foie Gras

Emma Slawinski, Director of Advocacy & Policy, said: