Animal Welfare Act
(AniWA)

¹ The present Act ap­plies to ver­teb­rates. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­cides to which in­ver­teb­rates it ap­plies and to what ex­tent. In do­ing so, it is guided by sci­entif­ic know­ledge on the sen­tience of in­ver­teb­rate an­im­als.

² The fol­low­ing are re­served: the Hunt­ing Act of 20 June 1986³, the Fed­er­al Act of 1 Ju­ly 1966⁴ on the Pro­tec­tion of Nature and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age, the Fed­er­al Act of 21 June 1991⁵ on Fish­ing, the Vo­ca­tion­al and Pro­fes­sion­al Train­ing and Edu­ca­tion Act of 13 Decem­ber 2002⁶ and the Epi­zo­ot­ic Dis­eases Act of 1 Ju­ly 1966⁷.