The BC SPCA Now (2006)
2006 - Since AAS began documenting the BC SPCA on the AAS website, the SPCA has made some improvements:
- It stopped saying that it does not get a penny of government money as it claimed so many times for so many decades, when in fact it was getting $4 to $5 million dollars a year from local governments for dog-catcher contracts;
- It has changed its official feral cat policy from killing them all, to not killing them all;
- It sells fewer unspayed/unneutered animals;
- Aside from the SPCA's Wild Ark in Victoria, the SPCA no longer kills animals in a gas box;
- It might do some new-home screening (though we have proof that it often does not: Read more >> );
- It may do some professional dog-rehabilitation (though we have proof that it has not in many cases);
- It does not kill all "imperfect" animals;
- It "works with" some animal rescue groups;
- It is starting to practice some "limited surrender";
- It is running hard-hitting ads that show the reality of animal abuse instead of soft ads that offend no one;
- It began enforcing the PCA Act by making cruelty seizures;
- It may have stopped killing so many seized dogs;
- It may have stopped selling seized livestock through auction houses where they can be sold to neglectful owners or for meat;
- It seems to have started the process of having Crown accept charges based on psychological suffering;
- It has reduced the number of times it seizes animals without issuing an Offence Warning Notice as the PCA Act clearly states it must;
- It seems to have stopped taking the media with it to seizures;
- It stopped employees from breeding and selling pets (except those who already were);
- It stopped "killing for cash"; the practice of killing animals for people for a fee even it the animal is young and healthy (except where one of its dog-catcher contracts has it in the contract that the SPCA will do that).
2006 - But there areas that are still in need of improvement:
- In practice, the SPCA still kills feral cats;
- It still sells dogs to people without home checks or proper screening and when behaviour problems arise, it will not help the new owner, and still suggests that the owner kill the dog or bring it back to the SPCA to be killed;
- It sells animals without doing follow-up phone calls;
- It still sells dogs to people who put the dog on a chain;
- It still keeps rabbits in its cages for weeks at a time, never allowing them out;
- It still is killing many cats on spurious grounds of "health" or "behaviour";
- Its low-cost spay neuter programs are too expensive for the truly poor;
- It began making seizures under the PCA Act, but too frequently the animals seized are killed by the SPCA or fare worse under the SPCA than they did under their owners;
- While killing excess, unwanted rabbits, it still partners with Petcetera, which sells rabbits (Note, March 25/07: after years of activism by rabbit rescuers, (Petcetera is going to stop selling rabbits in BC in 2007);
- Its spokespersons make untruthful statements to the media and the public;
- It is still actively pursuing dog catching/disposal contracts with BC municipalities;
- As far as we know (there has been no statement from the SPCA) it still permits branches to sell meat at SPCA fundraisers although a campaign led by Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Society forced it to call off a crab-boiling fundraiser.
