In the 1990s a Whistler sleddog operator fell on hard financial times and couldn't afford to rent space anymore so he moved his dogs to Crown land where he tied some of his dogs to trees and put others in a cabin. The SPCA was appealed to multiple times to rescue the dogs. Even Ted Nebbling, the then-mayor of Whistler, asked the SPCA to help the dogs. The SPCA did nothing but evade and weasel by saying it couldn't act because it didn't have the power under the PCA Act (absolutely untrue) and couldn't act because the dogs were on Crown land (absolutely untrue; the PCA Act covers every square inch of BC). The cabin caught fire and most of those dogs were burned to death. This is precisely what happened to the Howling Dogs dogs: the SPCA was appealed to multiple times and said it could do nothing, not even take the dogs.