The SPCA is the agency created more than one hundred years ago by the government of BC to enforce Provincial and Federal animal cruelty laws. Cockfighting falls under the Criminal Code of Canada which requires all seized cocks to be killed (possibly to make sure that the cocks are not 'reused' by others). AAS has pointed that fact out in past postings. http://aaswatchdog.com/cgi-bin/watchdog.pl/noframes/read/18679

According to the law, someone has to kill the cocks. In one news item from the February cock seizure, one of the perpetrators is quoted in the March 1st Surrey North Delta Leader, saying that the killing of the cocks was done in the good old-fashioned way - by wringing their necks. Or as the Vancouver Humane Society put it, 'cervical dislocation'.

"The man, who refused to give his name, went on to complain about how the RCMP and B.C. SPCA behaved during the raid. "They're talking about cruelty to animals. They're the ones being cruel. They strangled, they twisted the heads of the chickens. They killed all of our chickens."

SPCA spokeswoman, Lorie Chortyk, said (of the February 2008 seizure of cocks) "This was a difficult warrant for SPCA officers to execute because federal law requires all roosters found on a property with a cockfight pit be destroyed. It's devastating. What we do is save animal lives, so it was a very tough warrant (for our officers) because we had to euthanize those birds, as per the law." (Surrey North Delta Leader - March 01, 2008)

Even though many people wouldn't agree that killing healthy animals is 'euthanasia', we agree that it would be unpleasant indeed. News accounts of the recent August 2008 seizure mentions that a vet attended, so perhaps a method of killing was used that is more acceptable to the public than 'cervical dislocation'.

What this highlights is the conflict between 'animal enforcement' and 'animal welfare', a conflict that dogs the SPCA. As long ago as 2001, the SPCA's own Community Consultation Report pointed out that the conflict is one that is harmful to the SPCA's reputation:

"The BC SPCA’s role in animal control emerged as another area of concern. It is evident from submissions to the community consultation that the BC SPCA’s reputation has suffered because the public perceives that the Society has put the business of animal control ahead of animal welfare. For many, animal control is in direct conflict with the BC SPCA’s mission. It is the view of the independent panel that municipalities should handle animal control since they enact the by-laws that regulate, control and license animals. The independent panel recommends that the Society should seriously consider getting out of animal control as contracts expire and put additional resources into prevention of cruelty, education and advocacy – the foundation of its mission." http://www.animaladvocates.com/spca/ccreport-animal-control.pdf

The BC PCA Act and cruelty sections of the Criminal Code are enforced by the BC SPCA. Someone has to do it. The question is, should the enforcer of laws that have resulted in the killing of thousands of animals, not just cocks, but dogs, cats, livestock, horses, and other species of animals, by the SPCA, be the SPCA, a society's whose most public mandate is animal welfare? Mass killing of healthy animals can't reasonably be called animal welfare. Unless done for food production it is animal control. Pest control companies control pest animals such as rats and raccoons by killing them. Animal law enforcers kill animals in the line of duty, such as the cocks, but some also control 'dangerous' dogs for municipalities the same way the pest control companies do - by killing them. Both are paid to do this.

The mixed message the SPCA sends, by overseeing the killing of thousands of innocent cocks, clashes in the public's mind with the animal welfare message it heavily promotes in the media. Some of the animal-loving public, when it is allowed to see the killing that can and has followed seizures, is disturbed and confused by that mixed message which was described and discouraged in the SPCA's 2001 Community Consultation Report.

The public is seldom allowed to know about the killing that can, and has followed seizures which have been heavily promoted as heroic by the SPCA. Why has the SPCA so seldom mentioned how many of those animals it later killed? How many has it killed? The SPCA has never told. How can BC's animal-lovers find this out when the government and the SPCA say that the SPCA is not a government agency and therefore it is not subject to Freedom of Information, even though it is the enforcer of the PCA Act, a government statute, and is paid a certain amount by government to train those enforcers. That peculiar position permits the SPCA to keep secret what it has kept secret.

The public killing of thousands of cocks this year lifted the veil somewhat. The recent application to the courts to kill the Harris Pit Bulls, made by the SPCA, lifted the veil again. Read the details at http://www.animaladvocates.com/top-stories/harris-pitbulls/harris-pitbulls.php

The question of the possible ethical contradictions inherent in one agency combining animal control with animal welfare is, at long last, being debated, thanks to the internet.