Why does any animal-welfare humane society have a "list" of approved methods of killing? Why isn't there just one method, humane injection, on any animal-welfare organization's "list"?

The answer may be that the SPCA is not only an animal-welfare society, it is also the enforcer of BC's animal cruelty laws, and since it is legal to kill animals for meat, then meat-slaughtering methods accepted in the meat industry have to be legal, and one method of slaughter is the penetrating bolt gun. So the bolt gun is on (or was on) the SPCA's approved list.

In my opinion that's a conflict of interest with the SPCA's animal-welfare mandate. To end the conflict I'd suggest that there ought to be two official animal agencies in BC: one for welfare and one for law enforcement.

Make that three agencies. Pounds is the third. Should (1)an animal welfare agency be (2)the dog-catcher as well as (3)the legal enforcer of cruelty laws with a longish "list" of approved killing methods?

BC SPCA CEO Craig Daniell, once told me that "his" SPCA would only have seized animals. I agreed wholeheartedly with him. That was in February of 2003. I still think it would be the right way to avoid the conflict of mandates that leads every so often to outrages over the SPCA applying to the courts to kill dogs and apparently telling the City of Kelowna that the penetrating bolt gun is "approved".