Sir: There was a racoon staggering in the middle of my street in the centre of Chatham. It was large, confused and could have attacked someone or caused a traffic accident.
I called the OSPCA and they said to me, “We don’t do wildlife.”
I know of other people who have called the OSPCA with injured animal concerns. They were told by the OSPCA that they will no longer help even injured wildlife.
The excuses they are using are as follows: “It is not our mandate.” (This is untrue; rescuing injured animals is their only mandate.) “We are not trained for it.” (This is untrue. They are trained. All animals, domestic or wild, must be rescued, knowing they might bite, and thus they take precautions.)
In the past, the OSPCA would pick up injured wildlife and take it to the appropriate rehabilitator (of which there are many in Chatham-Kent) at no cost to the OSPCA. It is the province that licenses these generous people and it is the rehabber who incurs the cost of healing and rehabbing the animal or bird.
The OSPCA gets the glory of being seen as the first responder, which generated a great deal of goodwill in the past. Now that they seem to protect domestic animals only.
I think they will see their donations drop. I have already stopped supporting them and I know of others who did the same as soon as they found this out.
I believe the order came from the municipality. They are trying to paint this as a Ministry of Natural Resources issue. This has never been the MNR’s jurisdiction. Local injured animals have always been taken care of locally.
If city hall truly believes the MNR should be taking over local injured animal issues, they should have informed the MNR and got their support before leaving this enormous gap in animal welfare.
Carmen McCauley
Chatham
