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The need to inspect and licence small animal charities.

Alarmingly and amazingly, anyone, regardless of experience or ability, can set up an animal rescue enterprise in the UK.

Puppy, behind wire, mournful
Indiscriminate breeding of animals needs to stop.

Over the last couple of decades there has been a proliferation of smaller charities and private organisations operating rescue re-homing centres and sanctuaries all working to their own agendas, often founded by well-meaning people, disappointed by the perceived ineffectiveness of the long-established larger national charities which they accuse of squandering money on staffing and administration costs.

The problems with small animal re-homing charities and sanctuaries

Most have an ethos of accepting any animal offered to them to ‘save’ as many as possible regardless of whether they have the proper facilities, staffing or finance to look after them adequately.

Many of these charities often go under through lack of volunteers or finance and the owners fail to seek help soon enough causing horrendous suffering, starvation and death by their “saviours”. It is a common problem the world over. Recent examples include a rescue on the island of Malaga where a hundred starving dogs were found and a horse rescue in Queensland, Australia was raided by Police who found dozens of starving horses.

Horse, thin, animal cruelty, horse cruelty
It’s not just dogs and cats that can suffer in failed rescue centres, but horses and other animals as well.

In the UK, alarmingly and amazingly, anyone, regardless of experience or ability, can set up such an enterprise. They are totally unregulated with no controls, inspections or licensing involved and this can and does result in animals that are supposedly being saved from substandard care and euthanasia being kept in similar or worse conditions. 

These rescues often become overrun with animals.

They are often one-man-bands operating on a shoe-string from the backyards or premises of the founders with few volunteers and back-up. Some begin through a form of hoarding whereby a person starts by rescuing a few dogs or cats and then decides it would be fun to turn it into a rescue or sanctuary not realising the implications, cost and responsibilities involved.

These centres are often in a position of becoming overrun with breeds that are the craze of the moment and of having to find homes for them as quickly as possible. This can lead to less stringent rules and policies on the suitability of new owners and animals can sometimes be given to owners that are questionable.

When we give money and support these smaller independently run animal charities we do not seem to investigate how well operated the charity is, what its aims are, its achievements and its expertise. Unless we are a volunteer or live locally to the charity we do not even make a visit. We are normally satisfied by the cute pictures they publish and the literature they produce. If they say they are saving animals, we are happy.

Many who trumpet that all their donated money goes to the animals often struggle to survive as they have no reserves to weather periods when donations dry up and find themselves unable to provide adequately for those in their care. This is particularly so with sanctuaries which keep them for life without attempting to find them new owners. The numbers build up to a point where the premises become overloaded and out of control with the helpers unable to give suitable housing and adequate care.

The Charity Commission has no remit to concern itself with welfare.

It often reaches a state where visitors or volunteers find themselves forced to report them to the authorities, which if they are a registered charity, is the Charity Commission. Unfortunately, the Commission are neither interested or have the powers to intervene when it involves welfare issues, only in monetary and trustee contraventions. Although local authorities and the police can intervene on welfare matters, the Commission is quick to pass the buck to the RSPCA.

This is highlighted by a recent case in 2017 involving the Capricorn Animal rescue where the Commission investigation report states:

“The [Charity] Commission is aware that the charity has been the subject of concerns from members of the public relating to the welfare of animals in the charity’s care; this does not fall within the Commission’s remit and concerns on this matter should be directed to the RSPCA.”

Placing the burden on yet another charity to investigate a similar charity is not an acceptable course of action particularly when the RSPCA is constantly accused of misuse of power and involving itself in legal matters which are perceived beyond their remit.

When other charities fail it is difficult to find other facilities for the animals. This burden normally falls on the major charities who are the only ones who have the means and logistics to step in, but this obviously places a burden onto them.

The new “Lucy” Law could encourage illicit animal rescues.

The new “Lucy law” which will ban the breeding and sale of puppies and kittens except from licensed breeders and animal charities could still leave an opening for unscrupulous traders.   The clamp down may cause a ‘shortage’ of available puppies and kittens which could increase the number of imported animals from foreign lands and encourage the setting up of pseudo rescue organisations.This has happened in the USA with imported rescue dogs.

With so many animal re-homing charities springing up, the control, regulation and inspection of these premises is an issue which urgently requires Government action before it gets totally out of control. Benefactors should also take a long hard look before donating and always be extremely careful to satisfy themselves of the soundness of the organisation.

 

 

 

 

 

My memorable meeting with C.J. the Orangutan.

C.J’s life and death was not a happy one.

There have been many animals that I have met during my career which have shaped my attitudes to animal welfare and rights issues and have made a profound impact on me and one of these was a Hollywood star orangutan named C.J.

Our meeting occurred while I was duty manager at the London Heathrow Animal Quarantine Station, (now the Heathrow Animal Reception Centre), and I had to supervise C.J’s overnight stay as a VIP guest. She was transiting back to the USA following a starring role in the movie Any Which Way You Can with Clint Eastwood.

It was my first ever close up and personal encounter with a real live Orang and at one point C.J took a fancy to my beard and sidled over, without prompting from the trainer, and stroked it. C.J stared mournfully into my eyes and gave me a kiss and from that moment I have always been convinced that you can tell an animals’ state of well-being by the look in its eyes.

Orang-utan, animal actor, movies, animal cruelty
There was something very saddening about seeing C.J doing tricks at the command of the trainer and being so submissive.

C.J sitting in the staff lounge with coffee and cigar in hand was neither an edifying or humorous experience.

Although captivated and overwhelmed at our face to face meeting I could tell from its demeanour that this was not a happy animal and I was saddened and disconcerted at the way C.J had obviously been humanised, particularly at one point when the trainer made a cup of coffee and lit up a cigar. Seeing C.J sitting in the staff lounge with coffee and cigar in hand was not an edifying or humorous experience nor was the submissive reactions to the trainers’ commands.

The encounter with C.J gave me the firm belief that it was not acceptable to train animals for our entertainment and there was something very wrong with forcibly humanising animals in this way, particularly apes, which after all are more like us than most other creatures and do not deserve to be belittled in this way.

Death of C.J.

Information about the life and death of C.J is confused and sketchy and is often muddled with his actor colleagues Manis and Buddha who all played “Clyde” at some stage. They all belonged to the animal training company called Gentle Jungle who perhaps did not live up to their name when it came to looking after the animals. C.J. is said to have been born in the Dallas Zoo and had two trainers, Paul Reynolds and Bill Gage one of which accompanied him when he travelled through Heathrow that day.

According to the Los Angeles Times C.J or Clyde was badly beaten by a trainer for misbehaving during the filming of “Any Which Way You Can” and died later of a cerebral haemorrhage, but there is much debate about this. Whatever the circumstances of his death, his life was obviously no picnic despite the admiration and media coverage he received and meeting him just for the those few hours was such a privilege and had an indelible affect on me. I just hope in these times of CGI we can consign the use of live animals in movies to history.

Updated February 2020

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