How can killing the healthy ever honestly be called "humane"? It is the height of deceit to kill feral cats, especially while refusing to assist their welfare in any way, while calling it animal welfare.

Yet until recent pressure from bad P.R., that is just what the BC SPCA did for decades. The number of cats the SPCA has killed is unknown as ex-staff and volunteers report that the cats were not even logged-in but sometimes dozens a week were summarily killed (along with strays that acted timid, even when they had an owner's tattoo).

But the number has to be staggering... an absolute treadmill of death. The deaths have been described to us and many were not nice deaths either.

Until recently the SPCA had an actual written policy of death to all feral cats that suffered the misfortune to be brought to this "humane society". The policy even contained the justification, that cats were better off dead than being trapped/neutered/released and looked after. We are not making this up...it's true! That is what the policy actually said.

But the cat ladies started to get some positive P.R. and they started to make a not inconsiderable impact on donations to the SPCA.

First the SPCA tried harassment and intimidation to "rid themselves" of the feral cat lady problem (not unlike the way it "rid itself" of the feral cats themselves). That blew up in their faces, especially the SPCA's attempt in 2003 to get rid of the highly visible Forgotten Felines Society. http://www.animaladvocates.com/top-stories/ForgottenFelines.htm

Slow to learn, in October last year, the SPCA slagged a feral cat rescuer as she lay in hospital dying of severe burns. http://animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/10763 Bev Parent was doing real "humane" work, refusing to kill the cats the SPCA had been killing. For that, the SPCA's "public relations spokesperson" called Ms Parent a "hoarder", an opprobrious word that implies neglect, dirt and disease, and mental illness.

Why are the numbers of people who don't trust the SPCA growing in spite of the SPCA's P.R. machine working full time? Perhaps because the SPCA never leads the way, but only reacts after the level of criticism reaches a critical point of impact on donations and bullying and harassment has failed. For the BC SPCA to survive, that has to change.