May 20, 2003

Kim Capri,
COO, BC SPCA

Dear Ms Capri,

It is becoming daily clearer to me that the SPCA, using its CAMP test and policies, is going to go on killing dogs and cats that are rehabilitatable. The euthanising of two of the surrender Baker-Pyke dogs by the Kamloops SPCA instead of the SPCA availing itself of many offers to put the dogs in foster homes, added to other killings of seized and surrendered dogs, is adequate proof to support this allegation in my opinion.

Do you not have the authority to stop these euthanasias?

Or do you have the authority but approve of them?

Or are you allowing yourself to be guided by the wishes and prejudices of branch staff whose experience you believe is to be trusted?

That experience is in animal disposal, not animal welfare, as I explained to you at our meeting in January this year.

The experience of hundreds of women who have years of rehabilitation experience is not being used. Offers from very experienced dog rehabilitators like Jennifer Dickson of the Okanagan Animal Welfare Foundation, to take any puppy mill dogs that are deemed "difficult", are ignored and the dogs she would have taken, and paid the bills for, are killed instead.

The SPCA has had almost two years since the tabling of its Community Consultation Report to decide if it will divest itself of the two intake policies that require large numbers of dogs and cats to be killed - pound contracting and open surrender. It said it would announce a decision regarding pound contracting in October of 2002. It has not announced a decision on either of these two policies.

AAS is not privy to information as to whether the SPCA is going to continue to be the cheap disposer of society's unwanted pets or whether it is attempting to stop this role: we can only judge the SPCA by its actions, and its actions to date indicate that it is not going to stop.

Specifically, instead of reducing the numbers of dogs and cats in its facilities that it must kill by the implementation of sterilization and education programs, by enforcement of the PCA Act to prevent neglect and desocialisation of dogs, and by advocating for legislation to regulate breeding, the SPCA created CAMP, a program with a veneer of very questionable science that seems to have been used to train staff to find "scientific" reasons to euthanize dogs and cats for the same reasons the SPCA always did - expense and space.

CAMP, as implemented, with only the tests that justify the killing of thousands of dogs and cats but with no remediation programs or financial resources for rehabilitation, therefore cannot logically be anything but a policy to justify the killing necessary because of the SPCA's two intake policies, and as a way to muzzle SPCA critics and to mislead the media and SPCA donators.

Until the SPCA divests itself of intake policies that require daily euthanasia of hundreds of pets, and until CAMP remediation programs are implemented and the SPCA allocates the necessary financial support for remediation, the SPCA will have to keep the employees who are experienced in animal control and animal disposal and the SPCA's critics are going to continue to reveal every last self-serving dishonest killing.

Judy Stone
President Animal Advocates Society of BC

cc: Craig Daniell, BC SPCA Manager of Cruelty Investigations cdaniell@spca.bc.ca