It is a terrible blow for the prevention of cruelty when the SPCA is found to have acted illegally and unlawfully in a seizure, as a court did in April last year. http://www.animaladvocates.com/seizures/vandongen/index.htm

And now, here is a vet who is calling an SPCA enforcement action "malicious", though a court has not found that yet.

AAS was not as thrilled as were others in the animal rights movement when the Vancouver Humane Society and the BC SPCA grabbed headlines. And we can't agree with Dr Burton that VHS and other groups have bullied the SPCA. From our perspective, and that of many other people who have dared to criticize the SPCA or have had their healthy animals seized and killed and have been declared criminals by courts, it is the SPCA that is the bully.

We weren't thrilled because what if this crucial and high-profile case fails? Crown prosecutors, who have been battening off the gullibility of the courts for the last two years, may start to refuse to take SPCA reports if the SPCA is seen as unreliable.

Win or lose, it is unlikely the hippo's life will be changed and it is unlikely that a court will put the zoo out of business by imposing a sentence of a prohibition of owning animals.

We hope the SPCA wins on principle, but we worry that it will lose and that will set back prevention of cruelty in BC badly because it will call into question the SPCA's credibility and reliability with the courts and the government. The SPCA could have started with a case where it would have a better chance of actually shutting down a zoo, such as the Chickadee Ridge zoo that has sad monkeys in cages, and built from that success. It wouldn't have attracted so much attention, but it might have more easily succeeded.