The number of complaints to the SPCA is going up
Posted September 14, 2015 6:12 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – More of us than ever before are calling the BC SPCA if we think an animal could be in distress.
The call centre is seeing another big jump in the number of reports, but that doesn’t mean there is more animal abuse.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of there’s more cruelty. I think it’s just a matter of people [being] more aware of what’s going on around them and the fact that they can report it,” says Senior manager of cruelty investigations Shawn Eccles.
The group fielded almost 8,900 complaints in 2014, that’s 1,000 more than the year before.
Eccles thinks the opening of a call centre has made it easier.
“We have a 1-800 number that people can call. In the past, you were really more reliant on making calls locally and you weren’t quite sure if you could get through. There were a variety of different logistical problems.”
Eccles says keeping up is getting difficult.
Only two more people have been assigned to cruelty investigations even with the giant leap in cases.
But he doesn’t want the public to stop calling, their cruelty hotline is 1-855-622-7722.
