# Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 of 24 September 2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing (Text with EEA relevance), Article 18: Depopulation

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

1. The competent authority responsible for a depopulation operation shall establish an action plan to ensure compliance with the rules laid down in this Regulation, before the commencement of the operation.
In particular, the stunning and killing methods planned and the corresponding standard operating procedures for ensuring compliance with the rules laid down in this Regulation shall be included in the contingency plans required under assimilated law on animal health, on the basis of the hypothesis established in the contingency plan concerning the size and the location of suspected outbreaks.
2. The competent authority shall:
(a) ensure that such operations are carried out in accordance with the action plan referred to in paragraph 1;
(b) take any appropriate action to safeguard the welfare of the animals in the best available conditions.
3. For the purposes of this Article and in exceptional circumstances, the competent authority may grant derogations from one or more of the provisions of this Regulation where it considers that compliance is likely to affect human health or significantly slow down the process of eradication of a disease.
4. By 30 June each year, each competent authority shall publish a report on the depopulation operations carried out during the previous year.
5. The Appropriate Minister may publish from time to time guidelines for the drawing up and implementation of depopulation action plans.
6. Where appropriate, in order to take account of the information collected by the ADNS, the appropriate authority may, by regulations, make provision for derogating from the reporting obligation laid down in paragraph 4.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2009/1099/article/18 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-regulation-2009-1099/article-18
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.