FROM THE STATE VET’S OFFICE
Why Do I Need a Health Certificate?
Why do you need a health certificate? Well, maybe you don’t. In fact, I suspect that many of you reading this article will never have need for a health certificate. While there are other reasons to obtain a health certificate, for the most part you need a health certificate when you are crossing state lines with animals, when you are traveling to another country with your animals, and when you are taking animals to certain events such as shows or sales that require the document on their own. The regulatory authority for requiring health certificates generally comes from the state or federal animal regulations associated with interstate or foreign travel with animals. I am mostly interested in livestock and poultry, but there are specific regulations for all animals from a gerbil to an elephant. I guess right about here, I should tell you that there is really no such thing as a health certificate, at least as we know it. The term health certificate implies that we are certifying the animals listed on the document. The fact is that it is difficult, but not impossible, to certify without extensive diagnostic testing the health of an animal. The official name of the document is a Cer18
Cooperative Farming News
tificate of Veterinary Inspection or CVI. So, if you hear some of your more sophisticated veterinarians or animal owners call it a CVI, they are actually correct. But a fair estimate of people who call in to my office with questions about regulations use the term health certificate by about nine-to-one over the term CVI. There, I’m glad I got that off my chest. I have heard people who regularly travel on the livestock show circuit say that health certificates are just a way for their veterinarian to get another dollar out of them. That is because often nobody requires them to show their health certificate at the shows. There is the school of thought that if nobody is going to look at the certificates, are they even necessary? That may sound reminiscent of the question, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it really make a sound?” While that question is there to be debated, there is no debate about the requirement for a health certificate on animals traveling intrastate or internationally. The bottom line is that, whether anyone checks them or not, the law spells out the requirement for health certificates. I can’t remember when our state
