South West farmer Travis Allington fined $4000 for providing incorrect information while transferring sheep

A 33-year-old livestock producer has been ordered to pay almost $5000 in fines and court costs after not complying with WA biosecurity laws while transferring two lots of sheep to a local abattoir. Travis Robert Allington was due to appear in the Bunbury Magistrate’s Court on Thursday to face 13 charges relating to the State’s biosecurity laws but was convicted in his absence after providing an endorsed guilty plea to each charge. Allington’s charges included multiple counts of applying a National Livestock Identification System tag to a sheep when it was not on its property of birth, failing to identify sheep with a registered identifier as an earmark, being an owner that caused or permitted unidentified livestock to be moved from a farming property, and causing or permitting stock to be moved and did not record details in the NLIS database. The court was told Allington transferred 14 sheep from his farm to the Dardanup Butchering Company during the morning of June 15, 2021 when biosecurity compliance officers noticed a number of discrepancies in the NLIS identification records. Inspectors noticed several sheep had been incorrectly identified as sheep that were born on Allington’s farm when they were instead purchased by Allington, several bore non-complaint earmarks which were required by law at the time, livestock movements were not uploaded on the NLIS database within the 48-hour time frame, and sheep were incorrectly reported to have been transferred from Mornington instead of Allington’s farming property in Harvey. Despite receiving a warning from inspectors about the errors and the importance of maintaining correct information, Allington transferred a further 16 sheep to Dardanup Butchering Company three days later, with inspectors noticing similar errors in the transfer information. While Allington admitted to the offending and co-operated with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development throughout the investigation, Magistrate Michelle Harries found the offending to be the result of mistakes and ignorance of the law. While Allington claimed in his letter to the court that he was not aware of the NLIS database and he was not given much information about the database prior to the investigation, Ms Harries said it was an obligation on Allington’s part to find out. Allington was issued a global fine of $4000 for the charges and was also ordered to pay $990.30 in court costs. DPIRD biosecurity compliance co-ordinator Paul Cassidy said the convictions were a reminder to all livestock producers that failing to correctly identify animals or accurately record their movements in a timely manner could result in fines or prosecution. “All livestock producers have a responsibility to play their part in ensuring a robust traceability system to protect the State’s valuable livestock industries including our important export markets,” he said. “Traceability is essential to managing and containing emergency diseases, as well as to regaining market access as early as possible should an incident occur.” Mr Cassidy also said identifying animals correctly could help deter theft and helped in recovering stolen animals.