Author: John Brookland

John Brookland is an animal welfarist, and amateur historian. He authors two popular blogs: animalrightsandwrongs.uk and animalrightsandwrongs.com with a monthly worldwide readership of thousands. He has written seven books on his exploits helping animals, also on social history and a book on the war horses of World War One. During his long and varied career which has taken him round the world, he has unfortunately witnessed most of the horrors of animal cruelty there is to see and has gained extensive insight into most animal welfare issues which he uses to write his blogs. He is now retired and still travelling the world with his partner to view wildlife and wild places before they and he disappear.

Paranoia over RSPCA powers.

What is wrong with our nation of animal lovers when we refuse to properly enforce and protect our animals?

In 2017 certain sections of the UK media reported, in their usual hysterical and overstated prose, that the RSPCA were in talks with the police and government seeking statutory powers under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to enforce the legislation without a police presence.This was deemed an outrageous idea by many of those who do not want animal welfare orientated people interfering in pursuits which involve suffering to animals.

Under English Law any person or organisation such as the RSPCA can bring a private prosecution against any law-breaker.

UK MP’s, Police chiefs and the Government at one point were all for trying to remove these mystical powers which didn’t exist in the first place as it is a long-established entitlement under English Law that any person or organisation can bring a private prosecution against any law-breaker under section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act (POA) 1985, so to stop the RSPCA would mean stripping every one of this right.

The national police Chiefs’ Council wanted them to “step back,” and for a government agency to take over prosecutions. Luckily the government ignored all the outcry as they finally realised that anyone can pursue a private prosecution not just the RSPCA and the alternative would cost tax-payers too much.

Those perpetuating suffering keen to join the bandwagon

Many institutions and organisations involved in some way in perpetuating suffering are more than happy to join the bandwagon in stopping the RSPCA as they know it frees them to do what they want without fear of investigation.

Simon Hart, UK Member of Parliament and a former head of the Countryside Alliance, an organisation dedicated to blood sports, was quick to jump in and stir up the controversy and  commented: ‘The RSPCA is a welfare charity not a private police force and the development is “appalling”’.

Tim Bonner the chief executive of the same organisation added “The charity’s past record in this area would make it the last organisation on earth that you would want to grant powers of this nature to.”

The RSPCA is continually and unfairly vilified for the work they do because of a complete misunderstanding of their role, which makes me extremely angry and disappointed. Having been involved in law enforcement I know how difficult it is to help these poor animals with one hand tied behind your back, constantly trying to be politically correct and facing unfair criticism.

UK lags far behind in their powers to enforce animal welfare laws.

Although in the UK there is consternation at the thought of the RSPCA being given legal powers, most other comparable countries have no such hang-ups and in this respect we lag far behind. Humane Society and SPCA officers in countries like the USA, Australia and New Zealand mostly have police powers and no one worries about them wearing police style uniforms.

New Zealand are way ahead of the game and the UK could learn a lot from them. The New Zealand SPCA is the only ‘approved organisation’ under their Animal Welfare Act 1999, so its 75 warranted Inspectors have exclusive powers to investigate and prosecute and have law enforcement training like the police and can issue fines and charge people.

They also run politically motivated campaigns for promoting law changes – all the things that anti-RSPCA lobbyists are keen to curtail in the UK. The main plus for ill-treated animals is that they have protectors exclusively with their interests at heart, fighting their corner, and pushing and deciding on prosecuting, uninfluenced by other interests.

Confusingly in Australia there is no national or Federal animal welfare act, but all eight states have laws which are enforced by varying state departments. Except for the Northern Territory, where the State authorities investigate and prosecute animal cruelty offenders, the SPCA inspectors have commendable powers to enter property and seize animals and evidence without police involvement, issue on the spot fines and warning notices and prosecute. In Western Australia the RSPCA, Department of parks and wildlife staff, police officers and local government officers all have powers as ‘general inspectors’ to enforce state animal law.

SPCA Inspectors are armed in many other countries.

In the USA, most Humane Society and SPCA officers have similar powers to the police and most of them are armed for protection. Government animal control agencies and sheriff officers also have powers and vets are encouraged to report cases of cruelty.

When I was a Humane Society inspector in the Bahamas, I was also a Royal Bahamian police officer which was extremely useful particularly when I needed ‘back up’, which was often!

The Federal Animal Welfare Act and other Federal Acts have little general anti-cruelty provision, but each State has its own cruelty and protection laws, often with higher penalties than the federal law and more stringent regulations. Since 2007 three-quarters of the States have much improved protection laws and there is apparently increasing support to regard cruelty as a felony and not a misdemeanor.

So what is all the panic about? Many misguided critics still want the RSPCA’s so-called ‘power of prosecution’ taken away from them, but if you are a true animal lover it’s about time that we got behind the RSPCA and for us to get in step with other countries around the world who see no problem in doing it right. Honestly, without the RSPCA no one would be interested in protecting our animals from cruelty – certainly not other animal charities who are too busy re-cycling unwanted pets.

Related articles:

Love them or hate them we need the RSPCA

‘Fry the ferals’ – the war against feral cats.

Everyone loves cats, right? That’s why they are arguably the most popular pet in the world. Wrong. For every person that likes cats at least another hates them, particularly feral cats. Not just individuals, but governments, institutions, conservation organisations, scientists and even some animal charities. How can this be?’

“now they’ve been exposed as the instigators of a backyard holocaust far worse than ever suspected”.

Their crime? Pursuing their natural instincts and behaviours as predators. Bird and small mammal enthusiasts are appalled that they chase, play and eat birds and small mammals feeling they are sadistic.  The media do not help the cats’ PR by ludicrous comments such as “now they’ve been exposed as the instigators of a backyard holocaust far worse than ever suspected”.

Cats, feral, colony, cat cruelty, animal welfare

Inexplicably everyone appears to ignore the fact that they are predators and no matter how you try you cannot take the killer instinct out of a predator. In fact it is unfair to do so, or even chide them for following their natural instincts.

“stop pussyfooting around and fry the ferals”

Feral cats bear the brunt of this fixation. Estimates of how many cats inhabit the globe put the figure at around 600 million, but realistically it is impossible to know how many live wild and the amount of damage they do. Most feral cats live alongside us, but stay disassociated from us, preferring to scavenge and hunt and this is why they are viewed as pests.

In New Zealand, Gareth Morgan, a businessman and philanthropist, began a “Cats to Go” campaign aimed at eradicating all cats from the country as they were destroying native animals. The campaign accused the local NZSPCA of not getting real and he stated that the country should “stop pussyfooting around and fry the ferals”.

The Australian branch of the Cats to Go campaign reckon they are far ahead of their New Zealand counterparts, “who lack spine in dealing with wandering cats, by compulsory microchipping, fines and legislated areas which prohibit cats being outdoors” instead of killing them.

Two million cats to be eradicated in Australia by 2020

Australia has a feral cat population of between 20-30 million and the Government announced that 2 million were to be eradicated by the year 2020 to save native wildlife, which obviously upset cat lovers the world over. They are blamed for killing 75 million native animals and have allegedly driven at least 27 mammal species to extinction.

Cat, street, feeding
Not everyone hates cats – Asian street cats being fed.

Gregory Andrews, the threatened species commissioner for the Department of the Environment stated: “We don’t hate cats. We just can’t tolerate the damage that they’re doing to our wildlife”. All kinds of methods including poisoning are used to exterminate them and they have been eradicated from over 50 islands and large areas of the Australian and New Zealand mainland.

In the USA, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute accuses cats of killing 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds and 6.9 to 20.7 billion mammals each year.

The UK Mammal Society believe 275 million animals are killed by cats annually in the UK, including 55 million birds and 80 million mice. They have even been implicated in the death of 230,000 bats. Bizarrely the top three birds allegedly killed by cats are house sparrows, blackbirds and starlings which we look upon as pest species anyway in the UK and slaughter in their millions. The whole debate then becomes rather meaningless.

Surprisingly, the RSPB, the UK’s leading bird conservation organisation, have supported the cat in the past pointing out that:

“there is no clear scientific evidence that such mortality is causing bird populations to decline. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds”. RSPB

But most authorities believe extermination is the answer and decry any other initiative such as trapping, neutering and releasing as it is not viewed as cost-effective and doesn’t decrease numbers because you need to neuter all of them and not allow any to be abandoned.

Feral cats face unpleasant and agonising deaths through poisoning and trapping.

They reckon neutering and releasing only maintains large cat colonies which still cause havoc in nearby sensitive wildlife areas. They may not be able to breed, but they can still eat is the stance that the exterminator lobby take.

Feral cats face unpleasant and agonising deaths through poisoning and trapping in many countries through no fault of their own because of the historic legacy of our insistence on introducing them into sensitive areas such as islands as pest controllers and then as pets and in recent times allowing them to breed out of control.

The lines are drawn between those who want to kill all the ‘nuisance’ feral and stray cats and those who wish to neuter and release them and it is pretty obvious which side will prevail. This is particularly so in countries like Australia, New Zealand and islands who have vulnerable rare native species of birds, mammals and reptiles.

 

Related Articles:

The reasons we are so intolerant towards cats.
We need a UK Cat Act
U.K. cats always lose out at any mention of legal status.