The Editor,
The Driftwood

It has come to our attention that the Salt Spring Island SPCA branch no longer has a spay/neuter/assistance program.

We have heard directly from people on extremely low, fixed incomes that the SPCA staff have told them that they only have money to spay and neuter the animals that reside at the branch shelter.

Yet, the SPCA's website claims that Salt Spring Island has not one, but two spay/neuter programs for people who need financial assistance.
From the Salt Spring SPCA web site; Are you in need of financial help to get your cat spayed or neutered? The Salt Spring Island Branch runs its "Pay for a Spay" program as well as the "SNAP" (Spay Neuter Action Plan) program which is partially funded by the BC SPCA and our local veterinarians. Contact us using the pager number provided for more information. http://www.spca.bc.ca/saltspring/

Also, the annual auction held by the SPCA is claimed to be solely for spay/neuter assistance. We are wondering where all the money is going.

Furthermore, the local SPCA (as with all, or almost all of the rest of the province's SPCAs) no longer fosters animals for women who are at the Transition House. This is in spite of the fact that the provincial SPCA was given a large grant in 2003 to fund the Violence Link Project. This project had, as one of it's goals, to provide care for women's companion animals while they and their children flee domestic violence.

If the SPCA, both locally and provincially, are cutting their services why are they not notifying the public? Why are they accepting money and praise for work that they are not doing?

We would also like to point out that this kind of service-cutting puts tremendous strain on smaller animal rescue groups who are working, for the most part, with tiny budgets of donated money (and all too often their own personal funds).

Preventing cruelty to animals is sometimes as simple as a spay, or neuter.

Gill Futcher-Blything
and Morgan Savin, trustees Friends For Cats