Heather Pettit of Vernon BC was the President and a Board member of the Vernon SPCA for many years. When the SPCA restructured in 2001, Heather forecast it would be a financial disaster - and it has been. Heather became one of the SPCA most vocal critics and in 2003 she formed the Vernon and District Animal Care Society to do the cat rescue and welfare that the Vernon SPCA was not doing. VDACS is one of hundreds of small animal welfare groups in BC communities. SPCA CEO Craig Daniell has said that the work of animal welfare must be shared with the community, and then his inspectors arrive to stop that work or harass the little groups. Some are theSPCA's critics and some are the SPCA's competition. The most infamous case of the SPCA harassing a rescue group was the raid on Forgotten Felines in Richmond BC. But there have been many other groups that have heard the knock on the door and have ended up having to pay lawyers to protect themselves from the SPCA's uncontrolled power.