Urge Delta Humane Society to Replace Animal-Abusing Fundraising Fare
Updated October 8, 2020:
Letters to Delta Humane Society & SPCA
“We want what is best for all animals.”
Delta Humane Society & SPCA
The Delta Humane Society & SPCA in Stockton, CA is a no-kill shelter established in 1966. On October 13th, they’re partnering with Victory Grill for a fundraiser featuring BBQ ribs and BBQ chicken. They’re using one group of suffering animals – chickens and calves – to raise money for another group – dogs and cats. Rather than responding to local protests and requests to show compassionate consistency, they are blocking and deleting comments on social media. They need more of a push.
What Can I Do?
Please call or write to the Delta Humane Society & SPCA and urge them to treat chickens, cows and all farmed animals with the “love and compassion” they show their shelter dogs and cats. Their stated mission is “to promote the humane treatment of animals and to promote the bond of caring between humans and animals.” Ask them please to either cancel this inhumane fundraiser or, better yet, change the fundraiser menu to a compassionate, animal-free menu.
Contact
Email: shelter@deltahumanesociety.org
Phone: 209-466-0339
Facebook: facebook.com/DeltaHumaneSociety
Twitter: twitter.com/DeltaHumaneSPCA
Website: www.deltahumanesociety.org
Letters to the Delta Humane Society & SPCA
From: Karen Davis
Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2020 10:57 AM
To: shelter@deltahumanesociety.org
Subject: Your October 13th Fundraiser
October 8, 2020
Attention: Delta Humane Society & SPCA
4590 S Highway 99
Stockton, CA 95215
I am writing to you regarding your October 13th fundraiser for your shelter dogs and cats. We share the distress many people feel about using one group of animals, inhumanely and needlessly, to help another group.
Farmed animals including birds, mammals and fish have been proven in countless studies to possess the same complex sentience as dogs and cats and, for that matter, humans. We all have highly sensitive nervous systems, pain receptors, fears, feelings, and other relevant characteristics that make it incumbent on us to show equal consideration to one another.
Chickens and cows and their young endure lives of absolute misery in production agriculture. They are killed in agony and without mercy. There is nothing good about a mouthful of animal misery. You would not think of serving dead dogs as bait to raise money to support your work, yet there are people for whom a dog is cuisine, nothing more.
While your work for the animals you care about is indispensable, the indifference being shown toward equally deserving creatures belies your mission “to promote the bond of caring between humans and animals.”
If you are true to this mission, then you cannot morally or logically use chickens and calves – or any other suffering creature – as fundraising bait. Please either cancel this fundraiser or change the menu to reflect the values represented in your various statements about “love and compassion.” The menu should include good food, not cruel food. The abundance of animal-free foods, recipes and restaurants makes it easy to serve compassionate meals that respect the life and feelings of all creatures and educate the public to broaden their circle of care.
Thank you very much for your consideration. We would appreciate your response.
Sincerely,
Karen Davis, PhD, President
United Poultry Concerns
12325 Seaside Road, PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405
Office: 757-678-7875
Email: Karen@UPC-online.org
Website:
https://www.upc-online.org
From: Nedim C Buyukmihci
Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2020 3:10 AM
To: Delta Humane Society & SPCA
Subject: Veterinary concerns
8 October 2020
Delta Humane Society & SPCA
4590 S Highway 99
Stockton, CA 95215
As a veterinarian and an expert on animal welfare, I was disappointed to learn that you are hosting a fundraising event on 13 October, that will include the flesh of animals such as chickens and others killed for that purpose. This is not only inherently cruel, it clearly is fundamentally contrary to your stated mission on your Web site:
“The mission of THE Delta Humane Society SPCA is to promote the humane treatment of animals and to promote the bond of caring between humans and animals. We do not destroy our animals. We accomplish our mission by providing shelter, care, adoption services for misplaced pets. We seek to educate and make the county’s citizens aware of their responsibilities in the crisis of pet overpopulation. We promote public awareness for the care of all animals in our world.”
As reflected in your mission statement, the central concept of a humane society such as yours is one of treating other animals kindly. In the case of cats and dogs, this is based on the obvious qualities these animals possess that make our concern for them logical and right. They are alive, they can suffer or experience joy, they have interests, they are the subject of a life. To gratuitously deny them consideration would be deemed cruel. This is the message humane societies portray to the public in urging people to be kind to their cats and dogs.
In the case of your organization, however, this message of kindness is mocked when you institutionalize the killing and eating of other animals who are no different from the cats and dogs you protect. Chickens or other farmed animals, for example, share exactly the same attributes with cats and dogs which we consider worthy of protecting. They are “alive, they can suffer or experience joy, they have interests, they are the subject of a life”. For your organization to treat them any differently – by being responsible for the misery of their existence on farms and then their deaths in order to raise money – is hypocritical and disingenuous with respect to educating people about kindness to animals. It is biologically, ethically and morally inconsistent and incoherent.
I hope you will reconsider the menu for your event. The situation is dire enough that, despite the immediacy of the event, if the menu cannot be changed, the event should be cancelled in the name of humanity. Make your message to the public one of kindness to all animals, not just those who are “cute and cuddly”. Make it clear that, as a humane society, you do not subscribe to the implicit message that there are those you pet and those you eat.
Nedim C. Buyukmihci, V.M.D.
Emeritus Professor of Veterinary Medicine
Emeritus Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of California-Davis
E-mail: ncbuyukmihci@ucdavis.edu
Photo credit: UPC sanctuary chickens, October 2020.
Thank you for speaking up for the billions of animals we work to bring out of the darkness of dinner plates into the light of human compassion for all creatures.
United Poultry Concerns