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For the second time this year, an animal welfare agency in Edmonton is facing charges under the Animal Protection Act.
CTV News has obtained documents outlining the non-criminal charges filed by the Alberta SPCA against the City of Edmonton, the Director of the Animal Control and Monitoring Center (ACCC) and various others.
The documents, dated October 5, 2018, detail the charges brought against Ron Gabruck, Director of Animal Care and Animal Control, with Amy Buijze, Veterinary Technician, and with Jessica Stern and Maya Dery, ACCC employees. .
The charges stem from an incident that occurred on May 18, 2018.
The SPCA said it received a complaint in July 2018 that three cats in the Edmonton Animal Care and Control Center had suffered and died.
The city, Gabruck, Buijze, Stern and Dery all face charges of allowing an animal to be in distress.
The city of Edmonton said Thursday that dead animals had entered under a pilot program of ACCC wildcats to another facility in the city just before their deaths.
In March 2018, the Wildcats Pilot Program was launched. It was intended to host wildcats introduced into the ACCC. The animals were sterilized or sterilized and were released for medical reasons, and then transferred from ACCC to city facilities with warehouses or storage areas.
There, cats would receive food, water and shelter and could live all their lives while helping to control rodent populations in the area.
In the first three months, the program found homes for 33 cats.
"We do not know exactly why they died," said David Aitken, Branch Manager at Community Standards. "They died as part of our facility's move to the planned waste management facility."
Aitken said that two of the cats had been found dead there and that the third had died within one day.
Since the death of the three cats, the wildcats program has been suspended and deaths have been reported to the Edmonton Humane Society, and conducted an internal review. The case was then returned to the Alberta SPCA for investigation.
The city reported that Edmonton had about 65,000 wildcats, most of them living outside and having little or no human contact. About 800 of these cats are brought into the ACCC each year, but the city said many of them were finally euthanized because they could not be easily adopted.
"We still think the pilot project has a lot of merit, but we want to make sure that before we go, the processes are in place, that the staff is fully trained, that we are aware of what can go wrong and prevent that does not happen. happen again, "said Aitken.
The accused are scheduled to appear in court on December 12.
Abandoned cats in an EHS van
About a month before this incident, three cats were found abandoned in an Edmonton Humane Society truck, after nearly three weeks without food or water. On March 27, the three cats were brought to the shelter in an EHS van, but were forgotten.
The animals were not found in the vehicle until April 18th. EHS stated that they were dehydrated, hungry and had their paws burned with urine, but that they had not suffered serious injuries and had since been adopted.
In this case, Mariah Berini, an EHS employee, was charged with causing or allowing an animal to be in distress and failing to provide food and supplies. sufficient water to the animals.
Law professor "surprised" by the second case
Peter Sankoff, a law professor at the University of Alberta, told CTV News that he was surprised to learn this second case.
"It is very disturbing to see that animal protection agencies, which are responsible for ensuring that our animals do not suffer any harm, are themselves the object of allegations for causing harm", Sankoff said.
Sankoff said that if the incident itself was worrying, he wondered why the details of the incident had not been revealed earlier.
"When charges of this type have been laid against a public body, I mean, it is an accusation against the city of Edmonton. This is a matter of great concern to all of us and I think that explanations should be provided as soon as possible. . "
With files from David Ewasuk
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