Wildlife licence holders

The Wildlife Regulations 2024 create twelve kinds of wildlife licence — basic, advanced, specimen, dingo, controller, dealer, demonstrator, displayer, game bird farmer, processor, farmer and taxidermist. Each kind lets its holder do some things with wildlife (buy it, keep it, sell it, breed it, and so on) but not others, attaches conditions to how those things may be done, and adds ongoing paperwork duties.

This ruleset takes the details of a licence — its type, the wildlife it covers, the purpose, the source of the animals — and works out, automatically:

• What the holder may and may not do — every handling activity is marked Permitted or Forbidden (regs 8–19).
• The conditions on doing it — where a transaction may take place, who the other party may be, where wildlife must be kept, and the special safety rules for dingoes (regs 38–60).
• What the holder must do — record-keeping and notification duties are marked Obligated, individual form fields become Required, and the rules even check whether a record was filed on time (regs 27–37).

Everything below is worked out by the same rules, evaluated top-to-bottom: when two rules touch the same activity, the later one wins. That single idea explains the whole permission system — including how a condition can slam a permission shut again (a dingo pup under seven weeks turns "buy" back off unless the Secretary has approved).

This revision of the encoding roughly doubles the covered ground: alongside the permission matrix and the record-keeping duties, the licence conditions of regs 38–60 (transactions, displays, keeping, dingo safety, employees, signage, controller approvals) are now encoded, and reg 116 unlocks import/export for an import/export permit within its validity window. Regs 61–115 and 117–142 remain headings-only stubs — see Observations.

You provide a fact that is entered about the licence. Rules work out a conclusion the rules calculate. The ruleset draws on a large shared data model; the entities that actually drive these rules are below.

Before any licence-specific rule runs, an initialisation step sets every wildlife handling activity to Forbidden — buying, selling, acquiring, receiving, disposing, keeping, possessing, breeding, displaying, destroying, importing, exporting, and the rest. Nothing is allowed yet.

The same step switches on a handful of Obligated duties that apply to every holder regardless of licence type — chiefly the duties to notify a change of name, address or telephone number (for the holder, an employee, or an authorised person), to notify employee details, and to notify police of a wildlife theft.

Each licence type has its own rule. It first checks that the chosen licence type matches, then checks a gate — the right Schedule for the species, the right purpose, sometimes the right source — and only then flips its activities to Permitted. The general shape is the same for all twelve:

The matrix shows which activities each licence can unlock. A ✓ means the licence permits that activity once its gate is met; the gate is spelled out in the notes beneath. Some licences (processor, taxidermist) unlock different activities on different branches — the ✓ marks any activity the licence can reach.

The gate for each licence — the extra conditions beyond selecting the type:

• Basic — not commercial and the animal is in Schedule 2 or 7.
• Advanced — not commercial and the animal is in Schedule 2, 3A, 3B or 7.
• Specimen — not commercial, the animal is not alive, and it is a prepared or mounted specimen.
• Dingo — non-commercial, or for a canine-association show, or educational, or the animal is a dingo. (A deliberately broad “any of these” gate.)
• Controller — the animal is taken from the wild, is not being sold, is damaging or a danger to property, and is in Schedule 6. Unlocks only destroy and dispose.
• Dealer — commercial and the animal is in Schedule 2, 3A, 4B or 7. A second branch also permits dispose for dead animals in those Schedules.
• Demonstrator — either “promote understanding of ecology and promote conservation”, or “display in commercial films”, and the animal is in Schedule 2, 3A, 3B, 4A or 4B (any one). (An earlier version joined those Schedules with “and”, so no animal could satisfy the gate; it now uses “or” and unlocks correctly.)
• Displayer — for commercial films, or to promote conservation, or educational. (Opening and closing displays are unlocked separately in §5.)
• Game bird farmer — the animal is a bird, bred in captivity, and the purpose is hunting. A second branch permits possess and display of prepared/mounted dead birds.
• Processor — “to provide products for sale”, with the source either approved by the Secretary (Schedule 5A) or from a licensed farmer (Schedule 7), the animal not alive; a further branch permits sell / dispose / keep / possess / process for stock the holder itself bought, acquired or received.
• Farmer — “for farming wildlife” and the animal is in Schedule 7 (unlocks the widest set, including process and destroy); a second branch permits disposing of infertile eggs.
• Taxidermist — to preserve / prepare / mount / restore dead wildlife, with the animal in the right Schedule or from an approved source; different branches unlock buy/acquire/receive, then sell/keep/possess/process/display. One branch deliberately switches sell back to Forbidden.

Three licences also unlock a special “request approval to acquire wildlife from a specified source” permission (processor, taxidermist, and the farmer's egg branch).

Holding a licence isn't only about what you may do — it's about proving you did it properly. Four rule groups turn activities into record-keeping duties and then check the timing.

Transaction log (reg 27)

If the holder buys, acquires, disposes of or receives wildlife, they are Obligated to record transaction details in the log book. For each transaction, the species, quantity and transaction type become Required; a free-text description is required when the type is “other”. The rules then compute whether the entry was recorded on time:

• Most licences — the transaction must be recorded by close of business on the day of the transaction.
• Game bird farmer — a longer window of 48 hours after the transaction applies.

Theft, loss or damage (reg 33)

When a holder becomes aware of a wildlife loss, recording it is Required. For each loss, type, species and quantity are required; if the animal is a dog (Canis familiaris) each microchip number is required too. A theft triggers extra duties, and the loss must be recorded within two days:

Displays & demonstrations (reg 34–35)

A displayer licence unlocks opening a wildlife display; once a display is open the holder may close it. Each opening and closing must be recorded, and recorded within two days of the event. A demonstrator licence unlocks conducting a demonstration and obliges recording each one's date and venue.

Change of name, address or telephone (reg 36)

When the holder flags a change — to a name, address or telephone number, for the holder, an employee or an authorised person — the rules record who the change is for and which detail changed, then make the relevant new detail Required: a name change asks for the new name, an address change for the full new address, a telephone change for the new number. The change must be reported within 10 business days (modelled as 12 calendar days); the rules compute the elapsed time and mark the “report within 10 business days” duty Obligated.

Employees of commercial holders (reg 37)

If the purpose is commercial and the holder employs a person with delegated authority, notifying the employee's details is Obligated. For each employee, name, date of birth, telephone, full address, capacity and start date are Required. The rules check the start date was reported within the 10-business-day window; while the employee has no end date, terminating them is Permitted; once an end date is entered, its reporting is checked against the same window and marked Obligated.

New in this revision. Being permitted to buy or sell wildlife is only half the story — regs 38–50 constrain where the transaction may happen and who the other party may be. Any buying, selling, acquiring, receiving or disposing counts as “transacting under the licence” and switches these conditions on.

An allowed location (regs 38–39)

A transaction location qualifies when the other party is not an exempt person and the deal happens at the other party's premises, a location approved by the relevant body, or an approved wildlife event. For basic, advanced and dingo licences, selling or disposing anywhere other than the holder's own premises also qualifies. Whenever the holder transacts, using an allowed location is Obligated — and applying to transact in an unapproved location is always Permitted (you can ask).

At an approved wildlife event, one more check runs: the event's own allow-list must include your licence type (basic, advanced, specimen, dealer, demonstrator, displayer and taxidermist are each checked). Holding a licence type the event permits is Obligated.

An allowed counterparty (regs 40, 45, 49)

By default, transacting with the other party is Forbidden. It opens depending on your licence and the direction of the deal:

The six-month hold (reg 41)

Wildlife on a basic or advanced licence must not be sold or disposed of within six months of the licence being issued. The rules compute a “six months after issue” date (issue date + 6 months) and forbid any sale or disposal whose transaction date falls before it. (An earlier revision compared the issue date against itself — always true — so these sales were forbidden forever; the current encoding compares the transaction date, as intended.)

Displaying (regs 42, 46)

For basic, advanced and specimen licences, displaying wildlife is Forbidden — unless the display is at an approved wildlife event, where it becomes Permitted. Charging a fee for the display is Forbidden either way.

Keeping (regs 43, 47, 51)

Holders who keep wildlife must keep it at the premises specified in the licence — an Obligated condition, Excused when the holder has an authorisation to keep it elsewhere or the wildlife is at an approved wildlife event. For basic and advanced licences the rules also tally the holder's total Schedule 7 head-count across all kept species (animals under four weeks old don't count).

For dingoes (reg 51) the keep-at-specified-premises rule is excused for recognised outings: exercising the dingo, education, a canine-association show, or a purpose approved by the Secretary. (This rule is now correctly limited to dingo licences — an earlier revision applied it to every holder.)

Dingoes get the regulation's most detailed welfare-and-safety conditions (regs 52–57), all encoded:

• Safety (52) — every dingo enclosure must be child-proof, permanent and fixed, must prevent escape and prevent unauthorised access. If the holder lets another person interact with the dingoes, minimising the risk of injury is Obligated.
• Age (53) — the licence holder being under 18 is Forbidden, and allowing someone under 16 unsupervised access to dingoes is Forbidden, on an ongoing basis.
• Marking (54) — every dingo over seven weeks old must have a microchip; the rules check each kept dingo and oblige the chip.
• Escapes (55) — when the holder becomes aware dingoes have escaped, responding is Obligated: attempting to recapture them, humanely destroying them, or determining their fate. Doing any of the three satisfies the duty.
• Display (56) — while displaying a dingo (education or canine show), the holder must remain in attendance, protect the dingo from abuse, retain direct control of it, minimise the risk of injury, and ensure it is conditioned to handling — five simultaneous Obligated duties.
• Secretary approvals (57) — the holder may always apply to buy from or sell to a specified person, to transact a pup under seven weeks, or to keep dingoes at a different address; the application then requires the counterparty's details (and their licence number, if licensed).

And the strongest condition of all, reg 50: transacting a dingo pup under seven weeks old without the Secretary's approval flips buy, sell, acquire, receive and dispose all back to Forbidden — overriding every permission the dingo licence granted.

Employees (reg 58)

A commercial holder who employs a person with delegated authority takes on three ongoing duties: ensuring all employees are aware of and competent in the licensed activities, providing a copy of the licence to each employee before they act under it, and ensuring the employee carries the copy while working. For controller licences there's a fourth: when an employee takes wildlife from the wild, the holder (if a natural person) — or the person responsible for licensed activities (if a company) — must be present.

Signs (reg 59)

Every commercial holder except a controller must display an appropriate sign: it must carry the two prescribed texts (“possessed under a licence…” and “wildlife must not be taken from the wild…”), sit at the main entrance in an obvious, readable position, use black block lettering at least 30 mm high on white, and be kept in good condition. All six attributes must hold for the computed “displays an appropriate sign” duty to be satisfied — and it is Obligated, ongoing.

Controller approvals (reg 60)

Where a controller's wildlife is taken from the wild, receiving or destroying it is Forbidden until the holder has prior written approval — with approval, both become Permitted.

The suites are organised one-per-regulation. Twelve of them (regs 8–19) are a single happy path per licence type: give the right licence type with a qualifying Schedule, purpose and source, then assert that one representative handling activity comes out Permitted. The thirteenth suite (reg 27, record books) is the most thorough — it checks the transaction-logging duty and its timing both ways. The table lists every scenario and what it pins down.

What the tests do well. Every licence type has at least one scenario that opens its gate and confirms a permission, and the record-book suite genuinely tests timing in both directions — a same-day record (on time), a 24-hour-late record (obligation violated), and the game bird farmer's longer 48-hour window (on time). That trio is exactly the shape the rest of the ruleset needs.

Where the coverage is thin. With 124 rule groups and 41 of them carrying logic, sixteen scenarios leave most of the behaviour unpinned:

• Nothing asserts what stays Forbidden. Each licence scenario asserts a single activity is Permitted; none asserts that the activities the licence shouldn't unlock remain Forbidden, nor that a wrong-Schedule or wrong-purpose licence opens nothing. The one scenario aimed at a negative case — a commercial purpose on a basic licence — asserts nothing at all, so it can neither pass nor fail.
• No condition overrides. The behaviours most likely to break silently are untested: the dingo-pup rule that revokes transaction permissions (reg 50), the taxidermist branch that switches sell back to Forbidden, the Schedule-7 sell restriction (reg 40), and the six-month hold (reg 41) — the very rule that was recently mis-encoded. A single “sale after six months is permitted” scenario would guard reg 41.
• The whole conditions layer is untested. Beyond record books (reg 27), none of regs 33–60 has a scenario: theft/loss and police notification (33), displays & demonstrations (34–35), changes of detail (36), employees (37, 58), transaction location and counterparty (38–40, 45, 49), display & keeping conditions (42–43, 46–47, 51), the dingo safety/age/marking/escape rules (52–57), signage (59) and controller approvals (60). Import/export (reg 116) is likewise untested.
• Copy-paste artefacts in the scenarios themselves. Several scenarios carry a name pasted from a different licence (the demonstrator scenario is internally named “Displayer licence lets you display wildlife”; the game bird scenario, “…display wildlife in commercial films”), and several licence scenarios assert against a rule identifier that lives in the basic-licence block (s 8) rather than their own — a reviewer should confirm each still exercises the licence it is named for.

Points a reviewer or the rule author may want to check; these describe the encoding as published and are not legal advice. Several issues flagged against the previous revision are now fixed: the six-month sale hold (reg 41) now compares the transaction date rather than the issue date against itself, so it no longer forbids these sales forever; the dingo keeping rule (reg 51) is now limited to dingo licences; the controller's Schedule-6 branch (reg 60) is now filled in rather than empty; import/export (reg 116) is now unlocked for an import/export permit within its validity window; and the duplicate default-block Forbidden sets have been removed. The observations below describe what still stands. Note: the published version string did not change across these edits, so “version 1.0.0” alone does not identify which behaviour is live — compare the rules directly.