At last! As has been reported on this board many times, the SPCA fought tooth and nail to keep its animal control contract in Richmond, just as it fought to keep many other municipal contracts, some successfully, some not successfully, sometimes losing the contract to disillusioned former SPCA employees and volunteers and even to a disillusioned former SPCA Director.

As has been explained on the AAS website hundreds of times, animal control contracts exist to protect the public from animals, not to protect animals from the public. They exist primarily to protect the public from what may or may not be dangerous dogs (by killing them), to collect and dispose of stray pets (too often disposing of them by killing them because, as Ms Chortyk, the SPCA's P.R. person, says in the SPCA's press release (above), "no homes can be found for the animals"), and to control pest pets such as abandoned rabbit colonies and abandoned feral cat colonies. The SPCA's past practice under its animal control contracts was to kill many of the stray cats, to kill all the feral cats, and to offer to shoot the rabbits.

Doing that contracting business for millions of dollars a year for at least 50 years, earned the SPCA much enmity and was instrumental in creating the huge alternative animal welfare network, dedicated to protecting animals from the SPCA, which is draining away millions of dollars in donations from the SPCA.

AAS was very glad when the City of Richmond chose to stop contracting with the SPCA -- because, as we have written countless times, pounds and animal control contracting and disposing of pest pets, and killing dogs that may be dangerous, is a clear contradiction of the SPCA's mandate to protect animals - not to kill animals to protect the public - not to kill a municipality's unwanted animals - not to kill a municipality's pest animals - not for any amount of money.

What is happening in Richmond is what AAS has been promoting for ten years. In 2001, even the SPCA's own Community Consultation Panel advised that the single greatest cause of anger at the SPCA and loss of donations were the pound contracts. In our opinion, the SPCA should have been working hard to divest itself of these contracts, not fighting hard to keep them.

But the SPCA has found the silver lining. It is going to do animal welfare in Richmond instead of animal control. It will be able to recover its severely damaged reputation in Richmond. If the SPCA actually starts to do real adoptions from this centre not just sales (multiple checks and home checks and follow up calls, and follow up assistance), and it stops selling sick animals, and it offers real rehabilitation to any dog it accepts that needs it, then this is the kind of action by the SPCA that AAS can support.