A few days ago we sent you all an appeal to write a letter to the BC SPCA Board of Directors urging it to change some policies and correct some glaring deficiencies and conflicts between stated SPCA policy and actual SPCA practice. The next meeting of the Board of Directors is Saturday, September 7th and we asked you to write your letter before then if possible.

Our AAS messageboard lists eight issues that are very current and which the Board should be addressing with its executive - right now. http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi/messageboard.pl.

In case you haven't had the time to read the messageboard and write a letter, here is a sample letter that covers all eight issues with all the email addresses of the BC SPCA Board of Directors.

Be sure to cc your letter to AAS, because if the SPCA thinks you are one lone voice, it can ignore you, but if it knows that you are one of many and that AAS is keeping track, it will have to pay attention. This is how all animals in BC are going to get the help they need and deserve - by making the SPCA do the job that donators think it is doing - preventing cruelty and promoting animal welfare. None of the alternative animal welfare groups can more than a little - only the SPCA can do much. And so the SPCA must be forced to start doing honest animal welfare, prevention of cruelty, and education. Letters from you are the way to make that happen. We don't believe that the media in BC is going to do it, it has too long a history of publishing the SPCA's version of itself.

You can read the eight issues in detail starting here: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi/messageboard.pl/read/1243

Here are the BC SPCA's Director's email addresses. Just cut and paste them into the address line of your email.
mjs@kercam.com, pcutler@cariboo.bc.ca ,
phavlik@awink.com , rreynolds@thefabgroup.com,
ashburner@telus.net , lilith-01@shaw.ca, wvan@spca.bc.ca , charger@citytel.net , enlepage@nanaimo.ark.com , roxiegirl@shaw.ca ,
mtroman@ntouchcorp.com ,bthorntn@pris.bc.ca ,
marguerite.vogel@crtc.gc.ca , chrisward@kelowna.remax.ca,

Here is a sample letter: just cut and paste all, or only the points you wish to, into an email, then sign and send:

To Michael Steven, President
And the Board of Directors,
BC SPCA

I urge you to bring forward for discussion at the September 7th meeting of the Board of the BC SPCA these urgent matters:
The rescue of the dogs in Topaz Creek: After ignoring several years of requests to you to seize these dogs and remove them from being chained in the woods, and when the small organization Creston PAWS, did rescue them all, you allowed the media to give you credit, which would have resulted in a flood of donations to you - the very organization that refused to help these dogs, and which would have been sent to Creston PAWS, which did all the work and paid all the bills, if the public had known the truth. Although the media finally did publish the truth, it was not for a week and not until letters pointing out that theft of credit equals theft of money. I urge you to give the money you received under a false impression to Creston PAWS to help it pay its enormous bills incurred doing what you refused to do.
Cosmetic mutilation of animals by SPCA employee: Your own guidelines say this practice is unacceptable to you, and yet you permit the manager of the Salmon Arm SPCA to crop ears and dock tails of the puppies she breeds and sells. breeds.htm)
The manager of the Salmon Arm SPCA breeds several breeds of dogs and horses, making her by some authorities' definition, a puppymiller (read details in the link below http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi/messageboard.pl/read/1043. I believe that it is a conflict of interest for employees to breed and sell animals while thousands of excess are being killed - many by you yourselves (see details: Feeding your own industry - day job pays to dispose of excess animals, side job pays to breed more, http://www.animaladvocates.com/spca-breeds.htm). I urge you to start pushing the provincial government for control of breeding laws, especially for dogs and cats, the species that the SPCA kills thousands of a year. (Read the AAS proposals "Too Many Dogs" http://www.animaladvocates.com/too-many-dogs.htm>, and "Too Many Cats" http://www.animaladvocates.com/too-many-cats.htm>.
I urge you to draft provincial Pet Store laws. I understand that the abuse and neglect in pet stores is staggering and that there is much hidden cruelty by owners and staff that is reported anonymously to animal welfare organizations, you among them. There needs to be Standards in law, and spot inspections of all stores. (You can read about Pet Stores here: http://www.animaladvocates.com/pet-store-pups.htm .

I urge you to apply your own "Five Freedoms"* and your own "Animal Care Guidelines" http://www.animaladvocates.com/spca-guidelines.htm) to help chained dogs. In September of 2001, the BC SPCA publicly said it would "Raise the Bar" on seizures for psychological and emotional neglect of dogs kept on chains, in pens, garages, and yards etc. Except for the seizure in February in Victoria of "Scarlet" the penned Rottweiler (which seizure was only made after you received a letter from Animal Advocates Society pointing out that it knew that the Victoria SPCA was refusing to take any action at all on her behalf and it was prepared to publicize this, (Scarlet, a young, healthy dog, died a few months later while in the care of the SPCA); except for unlucky Scarlet, as far as AAS knows, you have not used your guidelines to stop this common mistreatment of dogs. Again, I urge you to start applying your guidelines in conjunction with the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act as you said you would. *The BC SPCA's Five Freedoms
Freedom from fear and distress
Freedom from pain, injury and disease
Freedom from hunger and thirst
Freedom from discomfort
Freedom to express normal behaviour

I urge you not to consider at this time, raising the $132,000 salary of the BC SPCA CEO. The BC SPCA's reputation was damaged severely by the revelation that the CEO of the Vancouver SPCA was making $204,000 a year, but in relation to many other CEO's of much larger US animal welfare organizations, $132,000 is more than generous. (See a comparison: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi/messageboard.pl/read/1252 . It is time to spend money on the grim, dirty, miserable cells that you keep your animals in and call "shelters" (See how the you spend the donations you receive - on yourselves and on your animals (http://www.animaladvocates.com/spca-haves-have-nots.htm)

I urge you to start doing honest education about all animal welfare issues, and to stop taking helpless caged creatures to shopping centres to be mauled by children, calling this education when it is really only to get donations. (See http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi/messageboard.pl/read/1282 to read the details of an SPCA education farce)

I urge you to stop the practice of using legal intimidation and threats to silence your critics ( Read here how the SPCA has used this fear of ruin to try to silence its (accurate) critics http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi/messageboard.pl/read/1284.

I look forward to your earliest response,

(Your name)

http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi/messageboard.pl/read/1284)