March 13, 2002

By Yose Cormier

Daily News Staff (Dawson Creek, BC)

Animal shelters across the province were thrown for a loop last week when the BC Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BCSPCA) announced that a moratorium on all animal euthanasia had been placed.

“This came out of the woodwork. We weren’t expecting it at all. We are all for zero euthanasia, but when it first came out we were very concerned,” said Dawson Creek SPCA manager Becky Cryne.

On March 5, the BCSPCA said that there would be no euthanasia performed by the SPCAs themselves, and veterinarians would only be called in to perform euthanasia for health reasons.

“When we first got the news we were happy because we are always for no euthanasia, but we were also concerned about the northern situation because we get a lot of animals and we don’t have a large population base,” Cryne said, pointing to the SPCA’s policy of not turning away any animal.

To make her point she noted that in 2001 the Dawson Creek shelter had 488 dogs brought in to shelter and 505 cats.

And according to Cryne, 112 of the dogs were euthanised while 283 of the cats were put down. (Cryne noted that the number of cats euthanised actually dropped in 2001 compared to 2000.)

Of those numbers, 35 per cent of the dogs were euthanised because there was no room, while the number rose to 70 per cent for cats.

“For dogs, the biggest problem last year was sickness. We had about 40 per cent of those euthanised put down because of health reasons. We had a large outbreak of parvo last year,” she said.

And most of the euthanasia was performed by the vet.

“We only have one staff member who is qualified to euthanise animals, and we prefer letting the vet do it because it is very traumatizing. We love animals and we find it very hard to put animals down. It’s just sometimes you just don’t have a choice,” Cryne said.

The BCSPCA plans on holding a review in April on the consequences of this new policy.

“We are not declaring we are ‘no kill’. We are looking at this as how to maximize adoption. This is the biggest news to hit SPCA ever, it’s such a huge change,” said Cryne.

Since the first announcement, the BCSPCA has given its provincial branches more information and ideas on what to do to increase the shelters’ visibility in the community and thus increase adoption rate.

“We were told to try getting more foster homes for animals, increase our advertising for available animals and get more volunteers but the problem is that there are just too many animals.

“There are rumours going around that we can send extra animals south — historically Vancouver and Victoria have a greater turnaround rate — but that is only a short-term solution,” she said.

What are the long-term solutions? The Dawson Creek SPCA is working on a couple.

“We need to focus on other areas as well such as spay and neuter programs and pet care. We are looking at implementing a program for low-income families with dogs so they can afford to spay or neuter their pet. We need to do those things before we have complete zero euthanasia policy,” she said.

There is also the youth club and summer camp programs, but these are very long term.

“We are getting in there and educating the youth and although these programs are very beneficial, we won’t see benefits for a long time,” she said.