Seagull death shows holes in animal care plan
The caring citizens of St. John’s and the rest of the province of Newfoundland are left with many unanswered questions and much frustration and anger over the four-day ordeal of a seagull that perished while impaled on a steel rod on top of St. Patrick’s Church.
The situation was mired in a lack of co-ordination of services as it seems that no one assumed responsibility for coming to the aid of this animal in distress.
Phone calls to the SPCA were referred to the RNC or the RCMP. The fire department on Day 4 stated they were still “assessing” the situation. Why was there such a lack of co-ordination of services to aid this injured animal?
It was not the responsibility of ordinary citizens to provide aid — they did their duty by making phone call after phone call asking for help — it was the responsibility of the various civic services to respond, as they were the people who had the appropriate equipment to render assistance and spare this animal from suffering through four days of intense heat with a serious and painful injury.
We have one of the most progressive pieces of animal welfare legislation in the country with our new Animal Health and Protection Act — but what good is it if it is not enforced or if the proper protocols are not put in place to ensure that we are responding appropriately to animals in distress or those being abused or neglected?
Yes, we have lots of seagulls in our province and we wouldn’t miss one as was suggested by one of our members of Parliament, commenting on the situation via Twitter.
However, it is not about how abundant a species is, it is about assessing the needs of an animal on an individual basis, providing humane care and ensuring a humane death, when all else fails. Our new Animal Health and Protection Act outlines acceptable euthanasia — allowing an animal to perish to death on top of a peaked metal roof over a four day period during the hottest days of the summer is simply not acceptable. Nor, in my opinion, is it legal.
The Department of Forest Resources and Agrifoods is responsible for the enforcement of the Animal Health and Protection Act and they must step up to the plate here — there needs to be a plan put in place to co-ordinate services to aid animals in distress, whether it is wildlife, livestock or domestic animals.
Right now, there is a glaring gap in protective services for animals in this province as there are currently no trained special constables in place to respond to calls of animal distress, despite the fact that the department committed to provide them when they released details of the new Act.
Many of these calls are being directed to the RNC or the RCMP and, in my opinion, it is just not appropriate to have law enforcement officers responding to animal complaint calls.
We need to learn from this tragic situation and put the proper protocols in place so that we are doing everything possible to ensure humane care for all animals in our province.