We take it as fact that Hughes' contract with the City of Nanaimo to impound and dispose of unwanted dogs does not include answering calls about dogs hit by cars because we doubt Hughes would risk the ever-litigious SPCA by writing so, as he has in the Nanaimo Star article: http://www.cyabc.ca/news.pdf

But it does not matter if Hughes' contract does require him to pick up injured dogs or not, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act legally requires the SPCA to relieve the distress of an animal in distress, and if being hit by a car isn't a cause of distress, what is?

(We can't help but comment here that very little is considered distress by the BC SPCA and this is just par for the course. We have proven that allegation hundreds of times and much of that proof is in our web mage, www.animaladvocates.com and on this messageboard.)

Even if Hughes has a contract to do that (and as we said, we doubt that he does), then the SPCA must still respond, but then it has a right to report that Hughes isn't fulfilling his contractual agreements, not to refuse to aid the animal in distress.

Hughes writes that in 1983 the Nanaimo SPCA told him that it will refuse to go to the aid of dogs hit by cars on the grounds that the dogs must be strays and therefore the responsibility of the animal control contractor. Hughes says that he has been covering the SPCA's mandate under the PCA Act to relieve distress ever since.

The PCA Act, that requires the SPCA to relieve distress to animals, covers the whole province of BC, including First Nations Reserves and dogs hit by cars.