Perhaps the seeming contradictions in SPCA statements is all just a media muddle, but there certainly are contradictions.

If, as the SPCA says, it couldn't seize the tigers for distress at any of the many times it inspected them in the last five years in various cages, then why was the SPCA "spending thousands of dollars" to find a place to send the tigers? And how does one spend thousands of dollars looking for a zoo or sanctuary for tigers?

The SPCA has seized animals in less distressful circumstances than these tigers in their miserable little cage. The dogs in the photo below were seized right off the sofa by the SPCA on the grounds of distress. Yet the SPCA couldn't seize the tigers from a small dirt-floored cage?

Then the SPCA is quoted in The Sun, May 15/07, saying it would have killed the tigers if it had got them -- before the tigers had done anything wrong! How is killing animals for public safety a part of the SPCA's mandate to protect animals from cruelty?

From the Sun: "...in this case, she said, the SPCA was prepared to destroy the animals if the pens weren't improved to make them safe. "The last possible thing you want to do in situations like this is seize the animal for euthanasia. However, I can tell you that is something that really did cross our minds," she said. "The animal owner kept indicating that as soon as the snow melts he would be building new enclosures, bigger ones. We thought that if that hadn't happened, it may have come to that [destroying the animals]." The enclosures were not improved before Thursday's fatal mauling."

As Peter Hamilton of Lifeforce asked, "Why didn’t the SPCA make him build proper enclosures? Since 2005 there were one to two large cats per 12’ x 12’ pen. The SPCA stated that the tigers could barely pace back and forth – a sign of neurotic, stereotypical behaviour and cruel confinement. Surely this is not “adequate shelter”. In order to reduce some of the animal aggression and to protect people a large, proper enclosure should have been built."

And how can killing healthy animals for the protection of the public be called "euthanasia"? Surely that has nothing to do with euthanasia. Even "destroy" is a evasive euphemism for killing a living being. One "destroys" an object. The honest and correct word is killing.