Chilliwack SPCA volunteers reveal some interesting statisitcs http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2040, and volunteer Wendy Weber blames the public http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2043
Wendy Weber's letter is very eloquent, very moving - and very honest. But it took the SPCA shafting her for her to tell the truth about how the SPCA shafts animals. Too many animal-lovers know the truth about the SPCA and say nothing because they don't want to be stopped from "grooming the doomed", like the volunteers at the Chilliwack SPCA.
Weber and most other animal-lovers have fallen for one of the SPCA's favourite exonerations for killing so many thousands of animals a year. They blame the "irresponsible animal dumper" instead of understanding that the SPCA has for decades made a very nice living by being the other half of the equation: being the dumping ground. Vets charge at least $100 to euthanize an unwanted pet - no wonder the public uses the 'free disposal service' offered by the SPCA.
Do the math: Another Chilliwack volunteer says what other volunteers have been quietly telling AAS for years, that Chilliwack kills about 1600 cats a year - or about five a day if they don't kill animals on Sundays. (This begs the question, What method do they use to kill that many?)
The SPCA has given out so many wildly differing euthanasia statistics over the years that there is no point in using them, but let's guess that Chilliwack SPCA kills one quarter the number of dogs - that would be 400 dogs, and let's guess that it kills a couple of hundred hamsters and other rodents a year, so about 2200 animals a year. Multiply that by about 40 SPCA 'facilities' (no place that kills its helpless inhabitants should be called a 'shelter'), and you get 88,000 animals killed by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals every year - just the figure that AAS figured out long ago. To be safe from the SPCA's lawyers (see http://www.animaladvocates.com/libelthreat.htm ) let's assume that not all branches kill this many animals and say that the SPCA kills from 25,000 to 50,000 animals a year.
It does it for dog-disposal contracts. It does if for it's 'open surrender' policy. It does it behind closed doors. Animal disposal is not in its mandate. No one ever held a gun to the SPCA's head and forced it to take every animal that is dragged or hauled through its doors, shaking and defenceless. The SPCA could have decided long ago to stop being the official companion animal disposer in BC.
For those who do not understand the business of animal welfare, here is a primer on the two ways to dispose of dogs, cats, and other unwanted companion animals and make money at it.
One is to have actual contracts with municipalities to control, collect and dispose of dogs. Every municipality must control stray dogs and many pay the SPCA to do it. Stray dogs can be disposed of in one of three ways: returned to owner if claimed; if not claimed, sold to someone else; if not sellable - killed. Those are the only options in the dog control business. The SPCA may have as many as 100 of these dog disposal contracts - it won't say. And if these contracts aren't in themselves lucrative, having a presence in the community certainly is - it attracts millions in donations just because it's there, even if the donators don't know what it is doing. Often the facility is owned by the municipality, so the contract covers expenses and the donations are gravy.
The other way to make money at animal disposal is to have an open surrender policy - which the SPCA has. Open surrender means never turning away a dumped pet even though it means either death for it or death for another. Open surrender means that whole boxes of kittens are killed outright and any animal less than desirable leaves the SPCA "shelter" in a plastic bag.
Open surrender means that there is plenty of new "product" (the SPCA's word for its hapless animals) to offer the pet shopper. And the product is supplied free by a public only too willing to take advantage of the SPCA's offer to take their unwanted pet, no charge. Open surrender means that the public has learned to simply expect that it can get rid of an unwanted pet easily, no questions asked, so why should the public hesitate to get that pet in the first place? That's how enabling works.
Again - even if sales of recycled pets is not lucrative, the SPCA looks really busy and necessary and its presence attracts millions in donations.
But we are hopeful that the BC SPCA now sees these conflicts of interest and is attempting to get out of the pet disposal business.