RFID in Animal-Tracking Applications

From the first patents covering radio-frequency identification (RFID) (#3,914,762 in 1975), the application of RFID for tracking animals has seen millions of tags applied on, or in, a variety of animals. A number of countries have implemented mandatory tagging of domestic animals, such as New Zealand requiring all licensed dogs, with the exception of farm dogs, be tagged. Similarly, Northern Ireland and Israel have requirements for all dogs to be tagged. Australia and the United States have established national livestock or animal identification systems, with the emphasis on farm animal identification. Japan requires all dogs and cats imported into the country to be chipped. The International Standards Organization (ISO) has developed two standards, ISO-11784 Radio Frequency Identification for Animals- Code Structure and ISO- 11785 Radio Frequency Identification for Animals-Technical Concept, as standards for RFID use in animal tracking.