Mandatory microchip implants could be introduced in Russia under new proposals to keep electronic tabs on country’s cats & dogs

Russian lawmakers have introduced a new bill to the national parliament that would require owners to have their pets digitally tagged, to help track down owners and prevent attacks by stray animals released onto the streets.

The proposals, introduced by local officials in the central Russian region of Bashkortostan, close to the Kazakh border, was sent to the State Duma’s ecology and environmental protection committee on Wednesday.

If passed, it would demand that pet owners take their beloved animals to the vet to be implanted with a microchip, linking them to the person responsible for them.

This measure, already in force in a number of other countries across the world, will, they say, “make it possible to search for a lost pet; ensure opportunities for free travel with the animal; bring to justice unscrupulous owners who deliberately put the animal out on the street; and protect against the spread of infections between animals and humans.”

Also, in cases where people are mauled by a dangerous dog, for example, the chip could help establish criminal liability almost immediately.

In March, parliamentarians from the governing United Russia party introduced proposals to allow animal shelters to euthanize unwanted pets and other strays found abandoned. At present, legislation only allows officials to capture, sterilize and vaccinate stray cats and dogs, before releasing them back into the wild.

However, in a move designed to help regional governments deal with troublesome feral populations, a draft bill was introduced to allow animals to be destroyed in a way “carried out by veterinary experts in a humane manner to ensure a quick and painless death.”

In December, Tatyana Loskutnikova, a beautician from the Siberian city of Ulan-Ude was left fighting for her life in hospital after a pack of wild dogs attacked her, chewing her face and sinking their teeth into her limbs down to the bone. Locals who rushed to try to rescue her said that her face was “damaged beyond recognition,” with even her eyelids gnawed off. Police officers shot 10 stray dogs in the aftermath of the attack.

Then, at the beginning of the year, an 11-year-old boy, Artyom Bogachyov, was reportedly savaged by canines in the same spot Loskutnikova had been just weeks earlier. He was flown to Moscow for emergency medical treatment.

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