(Image Credit: CFJC News)

By Sydney Chisholm

vernon bcspca

Vernon SPCA closure not affecting regional operations

Dec 9, 2023 | 7:14 AM

KAMLOOPS– It’s been three weeks since the Vernon BC SPCA branch shut its doors.

The permanent closure was announced in mid-November, due to ongoing building safety concerns.

“It was a really difficult decision for the BC SPCA to make,” said Ashley Fontaine-Ost, senior manager, BC SPCA Thompson-Nicola region.

“It was ultimately due to the infrastructure, it was pretty significantly compromised. So it just wasn’t feasible to fix it and it was unsafe for animals and humans to be in.”

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Despite a long waitlist for surrenders, and many branches at capacity as it is, Fontaine-Ost doesn’t believe the closure will negatively impact the surrounding shelters.

According to the BC SPCA, there has been a significant decrease of intakes in Vernon over the last five years.

“In 2018, Vernon took in almost 600 animals, last year is just over 200 [animals],” Fontaine-Ost told CFJC News.

The animals that were at the Vernon shelter have been moved to other branches including Kamloops, Kelowna and Shuswap.

“When they closed the Vernon centre, they reallocated the supports to other centers,” the senior manager explained.

“So they’re able to increase staffing in like Shuswap and in Kelowna to alleviate the increase of the animal intake that they’ll see and that we’ll see from the Vernon closure.”

Regardless of the absence of an actual shelter in Vernon, Fontaine-Ost said the animal community is still being well supported.

“I’m not concerned about that at all, because we’re still planning to have presence in Vernon, I feel like we’ve got a really great network,” she said adding that Vernon foster and education programs, as well as partnerships with vet clinics will continue.

“We have our Drives for Lives program that helps to transport animals across the province. So they’ll be very, very active still in Vernon as well to help support intake and to transfer animals into centers where they need to be.”