National Livestock Identification System update
Peter Gray
Registrar of Stock and Apiaries
Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia, Bunbury
Email: nlis.sheep@agric.wa.gov.au
The Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia established a sheep and goat National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) helpdesk in December 2014 to help improve the traceability of sheep and goats in WA. Failure to improve the level of traceability of sheep and goats in Western Australia may result in changes to identification regulations, with support growing in the eastern states for electronic tagging.
As a sheep or goat owner, you are required to either record the mob-based movement yourself, or arrange for someone to do it for you, when you:
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buy sheep or goats privately - including rams and private sales through agents
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move stock between your different Property Identification Codes (PICs).
Sheep bought at auction (saleyards, ram sales and clearing sales) will be recorded and uploaded to your PIC by the agent running the sale or the saleyard operator. Sheep and goat movements are recorded on the database as mob-based movements where the originating PIC, the brand on the tags (some may have a PIC), destination PIC, number of stock, NVD/waybill number and date is entered. You can use the NLIS database to check that stock you have received are registered to your PIC. To get started and set up an NLIS user account, visit www.nlis.mla.com.au.
The NLIS was setup to record movements of all sheep across Australia and requires livestock owners along with industry players such as agents, saleyards and abattoirs to register and record all sheep and goat movement on the NLIS database.
Given the thousands of livestock movements taking place daily around Western Australia, an electronic record keeping system is vital to ensure industry and government can readily trace emergency animal diseases or chemical residue issues back to the property of origin, and to other stock that have been in contact, more rapidly.