1986 ~ North Shore News mt Thins oy Bob Hunter MICHAEL WEEKS, executive director of complains that my comment about his organization hav- ing turned into a string of animal Buchenwalds was a cheap shot. I use Buchenwald as a meta- phor, of course. Obviously there is no intent on anybody's part to exterminate all) animals. The SPCA which does a lot of good work and always has, never- theless has been dealt a hard card by fate. “Doing away'’ with animals has become its main method of preventing suffering among dumb beasts. In a sense, the SPCA has fallen into the same 20th-Century trap as the people who advocate routinely using abortion as a birth control method. Because the deed is done so antiseptically it loses the impact it ought to re- tain. One of the reasons there was an outcry over the slaughtering of black bears in our corner of the world this summer was the simple fact that, thanks to media coverage and the gun-happy an- tics of zealous wildlife cops, the killings became pubiic. The tears — including those few who survived their visits to the North Shore, if any — have gone back over the mountain to hibernate, leaving so-called con- servation officers offering feeble excuses for the bloodbath. Despite the fact that not a single person has ever been hurt by a black. bear in the entire Lower Mainland, the bears were gunned down en masse. Talk about a cowboy mentality! Of course I’m scared of bears. I spotted four of them on my property last summer and about another half-dozen crossing roads or wandering along forest trails. But I sure as hell didn’t call the conservation department. I shouted at them, banged on pans, threw stones, honked my horn. In every case they took off like a flash. If anybody is worried about being attacked by large animals with sharp teeth, they should ‘worry about domestic dogs, never mind bears. And what would happen if cops started shooting dogs in the streets? Of course they don’t have to because the SPCA has such a nicely worked-out system for quietly and painlessly destroying them. ok Ok ek kk ke KK ® 2 private e 2 group * 1 social For info call 984-7999 J) © strictly personal e Now, obviously, if there are dogs roaming the streets attack- ing people, they should be done in. Further than that, their owners should be heavily fined, even thrown in jail. By extension, a person who keeps a fierce animal and fails to control it, is guilty of assault, as surely as if he had commanded the animal to attack. But most of the animals the SPCA kills do not fit into this category. They are simply strays — abandoned, lost, neglected. The phrase for them is free-rang- ing urban animals. The operative word is ‘‘free’’. They are picked up and ex- ecuted, according to the SPCA’s Michael Weeks, ‘‘because human beings are irresponsible when it comes to properly looking after their animals.”’ He asks if | have any construc- tive suggestions. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Mr. Weeks might not be aware of it, but a program has been in place in the United Kingdom for at least five years wherein stray animals that are picked up on the streets are NOT killed. Instead, officials either spay or neuter them. Once the animals have recovered from this quick little operation, they are returned to the area where they were pick- ed up — and released. The U.K program has produc- ed a couple of tremendously pos- itive results. The first is that the population of strays has begun to decline. The second is that more people are taking in strays because they don’t have to fear the arrival of a litter of furry little sweethearts. Each animal that is fixed is given a mark on the ear which allows everyone to know that this animal isn’t going to produce. Stray animals are generally perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. Some may raid garbage, but they also go after rats and mice. If they are not threatening to anybody, why kill them? The sea lion that was shot at the Expo site because it looked sick was simply a victim of what has become an_ unimaginative knee jerk reflex of the SPCA. Over to you, Mr. Weeks. Ballroom & Latin HOURS: Mon.-Fri. 10am - 10pm Saturday 10am - 6pm wt Ey the SPCA, CAPTAIN GERRY Harrington, of the West) Vancouver District Fire Department, said the mock fire evacuation at Sunnyside Manor fast Wednesday was a suc- cess. The News was incorrect when it reported that 19 of the 60 resi- dents refused to cooperate in the drill. Harrington explained that many of those residents were un- able to take part for various reasons, such as being out of the centre at the time. 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