When NIMBY gets in the way of justice

From this morning's Herald
Woman fined $5 for drowning kittens SPCA upset
By IAN FAIRCLOUGH Valley BureauTue. Mar 3 - 8:24 AM
The provincial SPCA says a $5 fine handed to a Windsor woman for drowning two newborn kittens in a bucket of water is "a travesty of justice."
The woman, in her 50s, pleaded guilty to cruelty to animals after drowning the pair of two-day-old stray kittens in Windsor last year.
Sean Kelly, chairman of the investigation committee for the SPCA, said a staff member told him that the prosecutor seemed nonchalant about the case in Windsor provincial court because the woman had been unable to get help from the SPCA in taking the kittens’ stray mother, and the prosecutor had also been trying to get the organization to deal with a stray on his property.
"The SPCA is not an animal control group, unless we have a contract with a municipality," Mr. Kelly said. "We do not take in stray cats."
He said it cost the SPCA more than $5 in gas just to drive to the Windsor courthouse for Monday’s proceedings.
He said prosecutor Bill Fergusson agreed with a defence request for the fine.
Mr. Kelly said the normal range for cruelty charges is $500 to $1,000 and long-term prohibition from owning animals.
"If they’re unable to pay, we look for lengthy prohibition (from owning animals) and probation," he said.
He said he’s worried the case could set a precedent for future sentences, and the SPCA is lodging a formal complaint with the Public Prosecution Service.
But Mr. Fergusson said he had two options: take the fine and get a conviction, or go to trial and likely lose.
He said in talking with the defence lawyer, it seemed likely that the arguments she would make at trial would lead to an acquittal, so he accepted the woman’s guilty plea in exchange for a minimal fine.
She was charged under Section 11 (2) of the Animal Cruelty Prevention Act, which states that "no owner of an animal or person in charge of an animal shall cause or permit the animal to be or to continue to be in distress."
"I was more concerned with the conviction than a large fine," Mr. Fergusson said, adding that the woman is on welfare and wouldn’t have been able to pay anyway.
He asked for a small fine and the defence lawyer came up with the $5 figure.
Mr. Fergusson said a prohibition order would be unnecessary because the woman doesn’t want to own animals and was only feeding the kitten’s mother as a stray. He said the woman was unable to look after the kittens and had said that they were not doing well before she drowned them in a bucket of water.
He said probation is not a penalty available under the animal cruelty act.
The judge told the woman that pleading guilty would show others that it is not acceptable to drown kittens, Mr. Fergusson said.
He said while he does have an issue with the stray cat problem in Windsor and the fact the SPCA doesn’t have mechanisms in place to deal with that, securing the conviction, not a vendetta against the organization, was the primary reason he did not argue the amount of the fine.
The conviction means the woman will have a prior case on her record should she ever be facing a similar charge again, which can lead to an increased penalty.
( ifairclough@herald.ca)
The purpose of any legal penalty is to provide a suitable deterrent to discourage repetition of an offense. If I was horrified yesterday when I read the press release, today's article opens up a whole new world of questions.
Very likely all the participants did not consider this to be worth pursuing. In light of the prosecutor's bias based on his own experience, the SPCA is quite right to be concerned about the precedent set by this ruling and to file a formal complaint.
There is a better solution, but its unrealistic to expect the SPCA to accept feral cats into its care. Anyone familiar with TNR already knows that feral cats do not want to become housecats.
Nathan Winograd once said "Strategies for saving feral cats (and their offspring, who can make up the bulk of the kitten population in our shelters) cannot rely solely on aggressive adoption programs or strategies appropriate for healthy andtreatable pets. The answer for feral cats lies in community based programs that allow them to live out their lives side by-side with the rest us, while we devise other programs to humanely control their numbers "
The key there is community based programs. The TNR groups are only one part of this equation. Successful feral cat management also needs tended cat colonies, with :

• one or more committed caregivers,
• shelter from the elements,
• funding assistance for the TNR costs,
• protection and/or exemption from 'cat at large' bylaw, and of course, most importantly of all
• cooperation of the neighbours.

The public prosecutor doesn't want stray cats around. The person who drowned the kittens doesn't want them around. Any of my neighbours with gardens or birdfeeders don't want them around.

No one expects the society to take in feral cats. The cats themselves don't want that. But they could sure use a public information campaign with articles in the media explaining the benefits of TNR and tended cat colonies:

• Many people do not understand about the 'vacuum effect' .... when ferals are rounded up and killed, more will simply establish themselves in the area to 'fill the vacuum".
• The 'Neuter' in TNR is the reason that it provides effective population control for ferals. Over time, colonies naturally grow smaller as they cannot reproduce. In that same space of time, unaltered cat populations multiply rapidly. Without the 'Neuter" caregivers are part of the problem, not the solution.
• Tended colonies are healthier because they are tested and vaccinated
• Altered cats who are being regularly fed are much less of a nuisance to neighbourhood gardens
• There is no scientific proof that feral cats decimate wildlife populations. The culprit is urban spread, pollution, destruction of natural habitats and dwindling natural food sources.

TNR groups should not have to shoulder the expenses by themselves. Assistance from the municipalities in the province would enable them to devote more time to TNR work, instead of spending so much time fundraising to pay their vet costs

Nor should TNR groups be expected to provide low cost spay neuter services for house cats. That is a separate ball of wax that should be part of a low cost, high volume spay / neuter program.

Population control for cats needs both TNR and SNAP. Its a little bit country out where I live ... enough so that people still regularly dump pregnant cats out on our road. SNAP would help minimize the dumping. TNR and tended colonies would reduce the populations that are already there. Why is that such a hard sell?

In the meantime, someone needs to let our provincial prosecutors know that cruelty to feral cats is still animal cruelty