Is the penetrating bolt gun still on SPCA's own approved methods list?
Kelowna's rabbit-lovers may not be aware that the penetrating bolt gun was, and may still be, on the BC SPCA's own list of approved methods of killing.
The only almost-foolproof method of killing humanely is lethal injection, and then only if done after an anesthetic has made the animal unconscious, as the handling by a vet necessary to find a vein and insert the needle is almost always terrifying to the animal, even if the death doesn't actually hurt. SPCA employees and volunteers have described to me how many dogs are so nervous while being led down the hall to the "euth" room that some bite, struggle, urinate, and defecate, and it takes several people to hold them down on the table. The humane thing to have done for these poor, innocents (if you accept that they had to be killed, which I don't accept unless they are suffering unrelievable illness or pain), would have an anaesthetic administered by a female employee known to the dog. Why wasn't (isn't) that SPCA policy?
Descriptions of the way terrified, suffocating cats and other small animals die, jammed into CO or CO2 gas boxes, is equally sickening.