FORENSIC VETERINARY DETERMINATION OF ANIMAL’S INJURIES: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Abstract

Abstract. The work covers the procedure of forensic and veterinary establishment of animal mutilation. It is argued that the only one who can establish the fact of the animals mutilation is a forensic veterinary expert. It is shown that the procedure should include the following steps: familiarization with the procedural document on its appointment; study of the case material, a full comprehensive forensic and veterinary analysis Rebolladaof the expert animal, the conclusion of the forensic expert. An animal’s mutilation cannot be established by subjective data that is not proven by objective examinations. The occurrence of an animal mutilation must be directly causally related to the infliction of harm to the animal’s health, dangerous to life at the time of infliction or harm to the animal’s health not dangerous to life but related to a severe level of damage and this connection must be not accidental but logical. It is argued that the forensic veterinary expert diagnoses the damage to the animal’s exterior that led to the mutilation, establishing whether it is fixable or unfixable or whether it deforms the exterior or not, according to the «Rules of Forensic Veterinary Determination of Severity of the damage to the Health of Animals». If an animal is mutilated as a result of defective veterinary care, resulting in negative consequences, the forensic veterinary examination of that animal must be carried out exclusively by a commission of experts consisting of at least two people. Determining an animal’s mutilation the forensic veterinary expert must follow an algorithm: he gives a morphological characteristic of the injury; determines the severity of the injury; identifies the danger of injury to life; establishes whether the injury was caused by the physical loss of an organ or part of the body or by the loss of functions of an organ or part of the body, whether the damage of an exterior is fixable or unfixable; establishes whether the damage caused deformity of the body. All obtained information is shown in the expert report or in the conclusion of the expert. The summary in the expert report should be the result of analysis of objective information established during the forensic veterinary examination of the under-expert animal. They must be detailed and scientifically justified.