Earlier this month the SPCA won a case against a Richmond farmer. The SPCA seized 81 sheep and 15 goats from a property on Blundell Road in March 2003.

The vet who attended the seizure and attended court as an SPCA witness, told AAS that the SPCA should not always be seizing and transporting animals.

"Rather than taking care of the animals on site, it transports them in weakened conditions and the stress kills some of them. The case was handled poorly. Most SPCA employees are ignorant, not competent."

Why does the SPCA have to have the obvious pointed out to them in court? Why isn't the SPCA less ignorant about animal welfare after more than one hundred years of having a monopoly on animal welfare? It is very educated in the ways to kill animals, but dangerously ignorant in the ways to keep them alive.

But vets telling judges that the SPCA seizes animals in ways that harm animals, even though it does not have to, seems to have dampened the SPCA's penchant for trucking away masses of animals. We will acknowledge that the SPCA has probably been criticized by angry but uncomprehending donators, threatening to pull their finacial support, when the SPCA has left animals behind. And then it gets into hot water from vets and judges when it hauls them all away, especially when it seizes and hauls off the healthy ones too. Quite a dilemma... unless of course, all your decisions are based on what is best for animals, not best for your bottom line.

With the seizure today from the farm in Langley, the SPCA changed tactics and left behind some animals, carefully explaining, "that SPCA officers would have seized the 150 sheep on the property, but most of the animals were pregnant and moving them would have caused more stress, resulting in the possible death of the lambs."

Good, the SPCA did the right thing, it made a decision based not on self-interest but in the interests of animal welfare. But what a struggle it is to make the SPCA do the right thing.