KAMLOOPS — The BC SPCA has released further details into their investigation of a property on Shuswap Road where nine horses were seized yesterday.
Senior Manager of Cruelty Investigations Shawn Eccles says along with the horses they seized they also exhumed the bodies of two horses.
“And removed some parts of the animals to send off for examination by the Animal Health Centre. Two had died previous to our getting there and had been buried on the property,” he tells CFJC Today. “So, we had the assistance of the RCMP and some of the First Nations bylaw officers that assisted us.”
Eccles declined to say where the nine horses that survived were sent but noted they had been sent to two separate facilities.
He adds since 2013 the SPCA has seen the number of farm animals seized across the province “steadily increase.”
“That may be partly because people have a better understanding of the ability to report conditions of distress to the SPCA,” Eccles says. “Forty animals already this year, this will bring us to around 50 horses.”
All animals combined, he estimates 1,400 to 1,500 animals have been removed from property owners this year.
