The RSPCA: A Failure of Mission and Veracity

The RSPCA is in a deep financial dive because it has built its fundraising on lies, and its mission on ignorance.

The RSPCA is falling apart... AGAIN.

From The Times of London:

The RSPCA was in turmoil last night after its new chief executive walked out before implementing a recovery plan.

Membership of the charity, which has been accused of aggression towards pet owners, hostility to farmers and mounting wasteful anti-hunting prosecutions, has fallen below 20,000 for the first time in decades. Fee income from members, already down a third in ten years, is falling at an accelerating rate.

Right. Things falls apart, as they should, when they are put together this poorly and managed this abysmally.

Back in 2011 I noted that the national RSPCA raised billions of pounds from the public, but did very little good with the money raised.

Instead of helping dogs and cats, as donors imagined, the RSPCA spent the money on expensive salaries and attack campaigns directed against farming and fox hunts, papering over their lack of attention to dogs and cats by claiming the work of local charities as their own, despite the fact that they did almost nothing to financially support local animal shelters and rescues.

What does it say that for over £122 million a year the RSPCA's enforcement efforts yielded jail time and suspendeded sentences for less than 190 people, and confiscated animals or a ban on keeping animals for 1,600 others, even as it simultaneously rehomes less than 4,000 dogs?

Who thinks that's a success considering the resources being spent?

In 2012, I noted that the RSPCA was rolling in money while killing healthy dogs:

In short, it's just like the American ASPCA and HSUS: a direct mail fundraising mill that does some small bit of good that is completely out of scale with the massive amounts of money raised, even as their primary mission is a full-on war with farms and farmers.

In 2012, I wrote a piece entitled "RSPCA Basket Case Seeks Basket Maker." noting that Gavin Grant, the head of the RSPCA, had just stepped down, effective immediately, citing "health concerns", and I framed the debate ahead:

There are two essential questions:

• Should the enforcement of animal welfare laws be funded by the least efficient revenue-collection system imaginable (direct mail and street-corner charity begging).

• Should the welfare of animals in the U.K. be entrusted to beggars?\
  
  

In 2014, I suggested that the RSPCA needs to be put down, and that the whole thing was a scam from stem to stern:

As I have noted in the past, the RSPCA in the U.K. is a massive money-grubbing charity that pisses away almost every dollar given to it, even as its workers put on store-bought uniforms and act as if they are police operating in an iron-bloc country.

In January of 2015, I said the RSPCA was morally bankrupt.

The RSPCA in the U.K. continues to demonstrate that it has completely lost its way.

The organization is now advertising for a new CEO after three top managers quit last year. Note that that RSPCA continues to look for banker and advertising types -- their ad for the top position does not mention care or concern for domestic or wild animals at all as a job requirement.

Now the RSPCA, which is still rolling in money, and pays its top managers jaw-dropping sums, is about to close Putney Animal Hospital and three other London clinics which were once featured on a TV show called "Animal Hospital".

The RSPCA is trying to insinuate that the closings have something to do with the fact that the TV show was introduced and narrated by pedophile Rolph Harris, but of course that is ridiculous. Putney was there before TV even existed!

The simple truth is that the RSPCA is closing the hospital because the national RSPCA has never been about helping animals at all. It's all about direct mail and street-side charity muggers and national campaigns against farming and hunting of any kind....

You could bomb the national RSPCA off its foundations and it would be no loss, and perhaps a massive gain, to the real needs of dogs, cats and wildlife in the U.K.

In May of 2016, I noted that the RSPCA was in the throes of an existential crisis, but I held out a small glimmer of home that Jeremy Cooper might turn things around.

Let us watch, but keep our expectations low. In the past, the RSPCA has allowed direct mail firms to shape campaigns for fundraising purposes, with the idea that the national organization would claim all the good work of the local affiliates while pocketing all the cash for itself. At the same time, RSPCA inspectors have donned store-bought uniforms and tried to bluff their way forward into homes and yards, even though they have no police powers at all.

A real change at the RSPCA will require a change on both fronts, and that's a big lift. Can Jeremy Cooper do it, and still hold on to his job? It's a good question, but so too is the opposite; if it's not done, will the RSPCA wither on the vine as it loses public support and trust?

The RSPCA is truly at an existential crossroads. Let's see which way they turn, and for how long.

Now we know the answer: Jermey Cooper has quit, and the Devil can now take the hind leg.

The RSPCA is in a deep financial dive because it has built its fundraising on lies, and its mission on ignorance.

There is a way forward for the organization, if they will imagine it, but it is not by attacking farms and the countryside, nor is it with direct mail come-ons and street corner charity muggers.

What's needed is a much smaller, more-focused, and honest RSPCA.

Dump the direct mail vendors and bin the political campaigns.  Put in sensible people to liaison with hunts, gamekeepers, and farmers, and focus on consumer protection (healthier dogs, cheaper veterinary care, balanced dog training), habitat protection (protect hedgerows, open space), wildlife rehabilitation and disease prevention (mange, distemper, sheep shelters), and dog, cat, and horse rescue.

Is this the RSPCA they have now?

No. 

And that's the point.