The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the UK reportedly killed 53,000 animals in 2011, many of them healthy or treatable. The RSPCA’s 44% kill rate can not be blamed on an open admission status:
In 2009, the RSPCA, which is one of Britain’s biggest charities and receives £120 million a year in donations, stopped accepting stray animals and unwanted pets.
While the number of animals being adopted to new homes by the RSPCA has fallen, the number of convictions against pet owners has risen by 20%. Critics claim that the organization’s focus on securing convictions has led to the drop in animals being adopted out as well as thug tactics against pet owners:
[In 2011], spinster Georgina Langley, 67, of West Hougham, Kent, was raided at her home by the RSPCA and had five of her 13 cats put down.
The charity prosecuted her for neglect, but Mr Smith, 62, came to her aid. After sending two of the cats’ bodies to the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) for an independent post-mortem, he said: ‘There appears to be no good reason why the RSPCA allowed these animals to be put to sleep.
‘The RVC post-mortems concluded the cats were healthy, with no signs of incorrect feeding or major problems with fleas or other illnesses.
‘They were very heavy-handed with an elderly lady and kept her standing out in her garden in the rain for hours while they searched her house.
[…]
Following a three-day trial in May 2012, the RSPCA dropped 11 of the 13 charges against Miss Langley.
The RSPCA, which routinely kills animals with a bolt gun, also shoots healthy/treatable pets to death as a form of “euthanasia” according to a whistleblower who worked for the organization for 2 years:
Ms Aubrey-Ward claimed large numbers of animals, particularly dogs, were put to sleep after being classed ‘unsuitable for rehoming’, but that the definition could be widely drawn to often include older animals, those needing veterinary care, dogs deemed ‘aggressive’ or larger dogs which were ‘hard to home’.
[…]
Ms Aubrey-Ward, 44, a divorced mother of four from Martock, Somerset, joined the RSPCA as a trainee inspector in 2007. But she soon found herself at odds with what she described as its ‘antiquated military-style’ regime which placed ‘prosecution and persecution’ of owners ahead of protection of their pets.
[…]
Later, she rescued a heavily pregnant ‘staffie’ bitch from a cruel owner, along with an aggressive male dog. ‘With some TLC in a nice kennels, and someone to work on her behaviour, she would have been OK. The dog warden and I tried hard to find a space for her but we couldn’t,’ she said.‘The warden took the dogs to RPSCA Hillingdon, where a vet said they should be put to sleep if nowhere could be found for them, and they were killed round the back. The dog warden noosed them and I shot them.’
An RSPCA spokesman told the Daily Mail:
‘We do need to put animals to sleep when it is in their interests.
‘Nobody who works for the RSPCA wants to have to put rehomeable animals to sleep but it is a sad reality of the work that we do.’
Unadoptable. Putting to sleep. Killing is a kindness. Nobody WANTS to kill animals. DOMFL. I see pet killing hypocrites are exactly the same across the pond as they are here.
If you can’t own it, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.
(Thanks Arlene for the link.)
Ms. Aubrey-Ward, the whistleblower who spoke to the Daily Mail for the December 2012 article linked in this post, later committed suicide:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2461453/RSPCA-whistleblower-Dawn-Aubrey-Ward-hanged-herself.html
Wasn’t there an article just recently, about how the RSPCA’s “will us your dog and we’ll take care of it” was basically a big fraud and they were putting down the large majority of the animals brought in under that program?
IDK but it would not surprise me. The last place I would ever will my pets to is any national animal organization with words like “society for the prevention of cruelty” or “humane society” in the title.
Can’t find it now, so either I’m remembering wrong or it was further back than I thought. The program was along the lines of encouraging the elderly to give the RSPCA (or whoever it was) legal rights to their pets after the person died, they even had “will writeup services” to help it along. And then something like over half the animals were euthanized…..
PeTA with the British accent. Although I have never before heard of someone shooting a dog then referring to it as “being put to sleep”. That’s a whole new level of kill-happy.
Reblogged this on angelfarm and commented:
Gimmie Shelter- but look up the definition first!
Spinster? Really?
Check out this condemnation of the RSPCA: http://twolittlecavaliers.com/2013/01/dog-lovers-take-a-stand-against-rspca.html
What the Daily Mail doesn’t tell you is that by far the largest proportion of the animals euthanased were untreatable sick or injured wildlife (for example pigeons and rabbits with myxomatosis).
I blogged about this when it first kicked off last year and again in June.
It simply isn’t true that the RSPCA does proportionally less rehoming than other animal charities.
Other places do it too.
That’s your best defense?
Sure, you know all those old ladies are dropping off sick and injured pigeons and rabbits. Please, RSPCA, give the “irresponsible public” some credit for seeing past your excuses for mass murder.