The BC SPCA sent its "team" to New Orleans, ten days after the fact and is making the most P.R. out of it that it can. SPCAs in BC are killing hundreds, more likely thousands, of cats a year for lack of space and money. Yet they send a P.R. team to the highest-profile homeland disaster in U.S. history to mop up the P.R. Makes good business sense now that rescuing animals in disasters has gone mainstream and is the media flavour of the month.
The BC SPCA is madly shuffling cats and dogs down from the interior of BC where there are probably fifty animals for every one good home, and where there few other animal rescue groups to share the burden with, to the Lower Mainland and Victoria where there are many good homes and hundreds of active successful animal rescue groups and individuals operating. The SPCA is off-loading the responsibility for local animal rehoming in these high-population areas onto other groups. That is not immoral, and in fact, BC SPCA CEO, Craig Daniell has said many times that the responsibility has to be shared with the "community" and we agree of course. As an aside, AAS has offered many times to "share" the rehabilitation of dogs and we've been ignored - the most famous instance being our offer to rehabilitate Cheech. Daniell turned that offer into a near-death experience for the SPCA by sending his top enforcers to the Delta SPCA (where Cheech was loved by staff and volunteers except for the manager, Mr Daniell's niece), to make sure Cheech got killed - pronto! And the rest is ignominious history which can be read at http://www.animaladvocates.com/cheech/index.htm
What is immoral is that the SPCA still tells local donors that it "never turns an animal away", when it has to (and is) because it is full of animals from the Interior and it will be caught by the internet if it kills them all every so often as it did for a century. The SPCA is sharing the responsibility, but not the credit. In other words, it is scooping all the money, while the other little groups do the hard, grinding work of real animal welfare.
Action for Animals in Distress is merely playing the SPCA's P.R. game by bringing 50 more homeless cats to BC. And it worked - look at all the free P.R. the media gave it. We have checked and we know that it has to turn away pleas to take cats, as does every cat group, and yet knowing that cats in BC die daily for lack of space and resources, it is taking 50 cats from elsewhere. It is taking fifty homes away from homeless cats right here, cats that it knows about. This can not be ethical by any twisted logic, but the SPCA has set such a low example of ethics that it can not be surprised that its example is being capitalized on by the competition. It can only watch in horror as the competition beats it at its own immoral game.
WESTCOAST NEWS
New homes sought for refugee pets from Katrina
Burnaby Now
Saturday, September 17, 2005
BURNABY - Dozens of refugees from hurricane Katrina are on their way to Burnaby, and they're all looking for a safe haven, a helping hand -- and a cozy lap to cuddle up in.
Thousands of cats, dogs and other house pets are suddenly without owners, homes or even food. In some cases, owners were forced to abandon their pets because they cannot care for them as they struggle to survive themselves. Burnaby-based Action for Animals in Distress Society is preparing to receive at least 50 cats from the hurricane zone and now they're putting out a call for temporary and permanent homes. The cats will be checked out by Dr. Parminder Mangat of Killarney Animal Hospital, who has volunteered his services, before they are released to their new families.
For more information, call Nikki at 604 724-7652 or Kristin at 604-521-1202 or see their website at www.actionforanimals.net.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005