The BC SPCA has commissioned yet another study to be done on pet overpopulation among First Nations communities in the north.

I must ask WHY?

Living in Victoria and being co-ordinator for a spay and neuter society based in Victoria I am terribly aware of the problems of pet overpopulation on the First Nations communities in Victoria.

These problems of astronomical proportions exist even though for 30 years the society I work with has been offering assistance to low-income people to help spay and neuter their pets.

I also must disagree with many of the statements in the article AnimalSense Fall 2003. "The work is not yet complete, but so far the results indicate a strong need for increased spay/neuter programs in many First Nations communities, says Locke." (Linda Locke is a First Nations lawyer living in Hazelton whom the BC SPCA have employed to conduct a survey on pet overpopulation among First Nations communities in the north.) "The reality is that it is not a lack of will, but of resources and access to veterinary services that is preventing people from having their animals spayed and neutered."

The reality that I face on a daily basis in Victoria is that many appointments are booked, the funding supplied and the pet and owner fail to show up for the appointment even though the spay/neuter would have cost the owner absolutely zero dollars.

The other problem that is consistent is that hardly anyone wants to spay their animals. The requests for dog neuters far outweigh the requests for dog spays and unfortunately the dog spays are the most necessary. Some of these dogs do not have specific owners but belong to an extended family and basically roam around at will. The others are tethered, but that is a discussion for another day.

Cats are a far different problem as many of these animals do not have owners at all. The work we do for reserve cats consists mainly of them wandering off the reserve and being taken in by others as strays or as ferals that these new owners by default are willing to take responsibility for but want to spay or neuter so as not to have a huge number in their backyards.

A spay and neuter MOBILE CLINIC that would come to the animals is the ONLY viable solution even for the Reserves in and around Victoria. This has been being talked about by Dr. Lawson for almost four years that I am aware of and each year how many thousand new animals are being born while it is simply talked about?

My experience is in a wealthy community which is far from rural. I cannot even imagine the problems and suffering in northern B.C. and that is why I am so disillusioned one more time by the BC SPCA.

How many studies need to be done?

How much money needs to be committed to studying the problem when the money is desperately needed to fund the solution?

When I looked up Mobile Spay and Neuter on Google it took .13 seconds to find 12,800 references. This subject has been studied and studied.

The BC SPCA keeps saying how committed the society is to the animals.

Action shows commitment.

A study is nothing more than an excuse to postpone having to put an action plan into place.

Further reading:The truth about dog control on BC Native reserves
http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/3550

and: $23,497.72 given to the BC SPCA for feasibility study
http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/3579