Referring to the killing of the five kittens: "It's something however, they sometimes have to do."
No - they don't have to. Feral cat programs have existed all over the world for the last 30 years or more. The SPCA cannot be unaware of Trap/Neuter/Return programs. Hundreds of BC women do this. They do it expressly to keep the cats out of the SPCA which had a written policy of killing all feral cats immediately, until recently. When I began my animal welfare work, about fifteen years ago, the first thing I was told by the North Vancouver SPCA was that it would kill any feral cats I brought in. At the same time I found out that they also killed hundreds of domesticated cats a year too. Killing excess cats, whether they are tame or feral is not animal welfare - it is pest control.
"Durante says the hard reality is that animals which cannot be adopted out can't be kept at the shelter forever, and feral cats are difficult to tame to the point where they are safe to be adopted to a family."
This line of the SPCA's sounds convincing unless you know that ferals don't have to be kept in tiny cages at an SPCA at all. In fact, keeping feral cats in cages the way the SPCA does is actually cruel. Feral cat trap/neuter/return is the compassionate solution, not days in a terrifying cage and then death for "failing".
The receptionist told me that the SPCA only puts animals down if they are ill or not adoptable, whatever that means.
It means anything the SPCA wants. It is especially heartless because it puts the blame on the animal for its own death. You're unadoptable - you're dead! Staff at some of the vet clinics that kill the SPCA's cats send us frequent reports of cats that come in with paperwork that says, "Unadoptable - unfriendly". When the cringing cat is handled kindly over a few days (the staff defy the SPCA orders to kill) it soon warms up and starts responding with affection.
Because I have surrendered those four kittens to the SPCA, they are now dead.
They and many more. This is pest control - not animal welfare.