We can only see this as a step toward real animal welfare for the whole province. Closing the clinic in wealthy Victoria (though they are pretending in this press release that it never existed) and opening one where the problem is staggering is the first sign we have seen of ethical decision-making by the SPCA.

But I take exception to Madame President saying "The Vancouver clinic was enormously successful in reducing the number of unwanted animals." They didn't even sterilize their own animals until the last six months for God's sake! And they charged more to the hard-working cat rescuers than many private vets did.

They made it tough for the really poor to somehow get there at least twice, a month apart, first for vaccines and then for the sterilization. This demand made it totally impossible for feral cat rescuers to use the SPCA because there is no guarantee that a feral cat will still be around to be retrapped and sterilized. That was really low behaviour of the SPCA, excluding the real animal welfarists who were out night after night, saving the lives of abandoned cats and making sure they didn't produce more kittens.

On top of that there were months-long waits because the SPCA vets were booked up catering to the wealthy who used the clinic to get what they mistakenly thought was cheap vet procedures when in fact the SPCA was often charging more than private vets for disease and injury treatment.

Many of the poor couldn't cope with this and so the SPCA told them to get help from the little private organizations like Mercy Volunteers, Aid to Animals in Distress ($85,000 a year in s/n assistance all raised through sales), Pets In Need, Citizens for Pet Population Control, Meow Aid, AAS, etc. The poor's animals were almost all taken care of these little groups while the SPCA hogged the millions and the media, ran a crummy clinic, and served the wealthy.