Will this be better than selling animals through an auction house?

By:AAS
Date: Sunday, 4 March 2007, 7:24 am In Response To: BC SPCA adopt-a-thon for farm animals (AAS)

Unless the are home checks and a period of follow-up phone calls and a commitment to the animals' future welfare this can't properly be called "adoption", at least it isn't according to the standards of other animal welfare groups in BC.

But it may be an improvement over the past SPCA practice of flipping farm animals though the auction houses to whoever buys them, even if for meat.

We have documents from a Fraser Valley auction house with the SPCA's name on them, given to us by a person who bought one of many little ponies the SPCA obtained (the purchaser was told by the auction house that the ponies were part of an SPCA seizure) and sold by the SPCA through the auction house. The person who bought a pony and gave us the documents also told us that the SPCA turned down an offer of fostering for the ponies and sold them quickly through the auction house instead.

The BC SPCA has two mandates: animal welfare and the enforcement of cruelty laws. How can selling animals through an auction house be defended as animal welfare by any person of average intelligence and ethics? We don't believe it is defensible.

We don't believe that the average animal-lover in BC would think that selling animals through an auction house is animal welfare.

If the animals at the Adopt-A-Thon are sold without real adoption safeguards, then it is little better than an auction.