Round-up-and-kill is the name for cat control laws that result in the rounding up and killing of cats in the guise of spay/neuter or licensing legislation - laws which benefit animal control agencies, but which result in even greater numbers of cats killed.
Why might the BC SPCA be supporting this misguided legislation?
The SPCA holds eighteen pound contracts in the Greater Vancouver area (2001), the value of which can be increased by the addition of cat control to dog control in the contracts. "The only solution to cat-overpopulation is mass euthanasia - just like we did with dogs." SPCA superintendent Jeff Lawson.
This legislation, that at best will never be enforced because it is impossible to check all cats reproductive organs, and at worst will permit the SPCA to make a lot of money killing cats under contract, was aggressively promoted by Vancouver Humane Society with the help of its friend Nicholas Read of the Vancouver Sun. When AAS pointed out the deadly flaws in VHS's proposal, Read chastised AAS in a Sun column and told us to butt out. Just as we said, in the municipalities where VHS, Nick Read, and the SPCA combined to adopt this round-up and kill legislation, there have been no attempts to enforce it and no change in the problem of cat overpopulation except where private cat welfare groups have established spay/neuter programs. And just as we warned, the SPCA immediately used the bylaw to try to shut down a cat rescuer who was doing the work the public thought the SPCA was doing and who kept her cats in much more humane conditions than the SPCA itself.
In 1998 and 1999, cat control legislation was adopted in the municipalities of Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, North Vancouver City, Port Moody, and Surrey which contains the clause, (or a similar clause):
"Any person finding a cat running at large that he or she believes to be unspayed or unneutered and takes into his or her possession, must immediately notify the Poundkeeper, and either deliver the cat to the Poundkeeper, or, upon request, release the cat to the Poundkeeper"
That means almost every stray pet cat, and every feral cat could be killed under these bylaws.
It is possible that every stray pet cat would have to go to the pound (SPCA) under this bylaw, because most cats are abandoned before being sterilized, but also because it is extremely difficult to make the determination if a cat is or is not sterilized. Even vets can't be sure if a female is spayed or not. So that means that all stray cats could be forced into an SPCA pound if the SPCA chooses. In 18 lower mainland municipalities the pound is the SPCA (when written in 2001). And at an SPCA a cat has very little chance of survival. Brian Nelson, ex-SPCA Director of Field Operations (overseer of the Vancouver Regional SPCA's pound empire) has publicly said that only 3% of cats at SPCA's are claimed by their owners. Some of the rest are sold, but most are killed.
Every feral cat would have to go to a pound under this bylaw, because all feral cats are unsterilized, (except the ones that have been trapped/neutered/released by a cat-rescuer - but they get killed at SPCAs too [even if tattooed by the rescuer] because of the near impossibility of examining a feral cat to determine if it is sterilized). So feral cats must be brought to an SPCA/pound, and official SPCA policy is to kill all feral cats, immediately (at the time of writing, we can no longer find the SPCA's feral cat policy).
Why would the SPCA be urging such cat-killing legislation?
1. AAS believes it could be used to increase the value of their animal control contracts in municipalities that adopt this legislation by adding cat control to dog control.
This legislation could be used by the SPCA to stop all the hundreds, perhaps thousands of kind-hearted people from taking in an abandoned cat and giving it a new home or advertising to find the cat's family. Why would the SPCA want to stop these kind-hearted people? Perhaps because if all these cats that have been historically taken in by kind strangers were to be handed over to the SPCA, the increased figures could be used to justify increases in the contract price.
2. This legislation could be used to shut down all the cat rescue groups who are responsible for saving the lives of thousands of cats a year, always having cats sterilized (unlike the SPCA even though it has its own clinic).
Why would the SPCA want to shut down the cat rescuers? Perhaps because they drain away hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from cat-lovers? Or perhaps because they make the SPCA look heartless and money-hungry by comparison with their selfless work? Or both?
AAS warned that this would happen and were quickly proven right. The Vancouver SPCA acted aggressively to intimidate long-time cat rescuer and shelterer
See http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/3846 The SPCA Raid on Madalynn Gilmore