Injured Woman No Hoarder
Oct, 13 2005 - 1:10 AM

SURREY(CKNWAM980) - The woman gravely injured in a house fire in Surrey Wednesday morning is a respected member of the Lower Mainland's car rescue community, and her colleagues say the SPCA is out of line, calling her a "hoarder."
They identify her as Bev Parent, and say she's taken on responsibility for trapping, spaying or neutering and rehabilitating hundreds of cats before finding them homes.

Karen Duncan of Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue says that's not hoarding.

"(Bev) doesn't keep them," Duncan says. "She keeps them until they're ready to go and then moves them on. If she kept them, she'd have thousands. There's a constant turnaround, and that's the difference between a hoarder and somebody that's doing rescue work: they're actually finding homes for these animals and making their lives better."

Some 50 cats were found dead in the burned-out home, and Duncan suggests those were mother cats with their kittens.

At last word, Parent was still in hospital, in critical condition with burns over almost 90% of her body.