Legal treatment of pets and service animals in emergency situations

During the catastrophic floods that struck the Republic of Serbia in May 2014, a large number of animals suffered and perished in the floods. The 2009 Emergency Situations Act, which was in force at the time, envisaged a solid legal mechanism for the protection of animals in such situations, which evidently did not function in practice. The most notable issues in the application of this legislative act that surfaced during the May 2014 floods are: the absence of any activities by the competent ministries aimed at preparing and organizing appropriate training courses and seminars; failure to publish any brochures concerning the conduct of animal owners or activities of associations involved in the protection of animals in the event of natural disasters; inadequate engagement of entities which were legally obliged to protect animals during the floods; non-existence of regional rescue teams within the Emergency Sector, specially trained to rescue animals at the time of natural disasters; non-existence of expert-operative teams for the evacuation of animals within the emergency headquarters; non-existence of resident civil protection units specialized in the rescue of animals; non-regulation of special animal rescue procedures from endangered areas in the emergency situation protection and rescue plans; refusal of rescue crews to save both pets and their owners; and the non-existence of shelters where both pets and their owners would stay during a natural disaster. The application of other legislative acts regulating the subject matter of animal protection and welfare, such as the Veterinary Medicine Act and the Animal Welfare Act of the Republic of Serbia, seems to have been equally ineffective during the May 2014 floods. For instance, a large number of owned dogs and cats could not have been found in the flooded areas because they were not registered, ID-marked or properly tagged. In the meantime, the Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Management Act was adopted in 2018. In this paper, the author primarily focuses on the legal solutions envisaged in this legislative act, in order to establish whether and to what extent the Serbian legislator has made an effort to address the aforesaid problems and demonstrated good will to legally regulate this subject matter.