Should SPCA have resources before confiscating?

Yesterday, the Houston SPCA confiscated 1,045 animal.  The AP picked it up today, sans most of the details and now described as a "rescue" rather than a confiscation.  Now the Houston SPCA is pleading for donations of goods and funds to care for those animals.  If you or I took in animals without being prepared to at least nominally care for them with prospects of being able to do so long term, the SPCA (accompanied by Police, Constables, or other law enforcement) would be on our doorstep in short order.

Taken at face value, the taking of 1,045 animals from "deplorable conditions" seems warranted.  It seemed odd to me that they could find a home with over 1,000 animals in such conditions in the area of Harris County where this happened so I did some reading of a variety of sources.  One showed this to be in the 6500 block of Breen Dr.  Understand that Houston is a sprawl.  The "greater Houston" area comprises the better part of 14 counties so this being outside the City but still in Harris County means it's a pretty populated area.  Due to the wonders of technology, you can get a pretty good look too.  Go here and put "6500 Breen Dr, Houston, TX 77086-3841" in the first block and "6600 Breen Dr, Houston, TX 77086-3843" in the second block and then click on "Bird's eye" above the map.  I can make a pretty good guess which property is the right one and bet you can too.

I checked the county property records and only 2 on this block are less than an acre, most are 62,000 square feet plus.  I put that in square feet instead of acreage as it's easier for most of us, who know the sizes of our homes in square feet, to imagine the property size in those terms.  62,000 square feet is quite a chunk of land.  Still, 1,045 seems like quite a "chunk" of animals.  Well, maybe not.

1 goat, 1 pony, 3 dogs, turtles (the little ones), snakes, hamsters, and a variety of fowl (parrots, finches, ducks, chickens, and geese).  Admittedly, the owner of the animals was selling them at local flea markets and it's likely some were considered livestock intended for the table.  There had been a previous report of the property that brought out the Health Department who worked with the owner to resolve "smell" issues last week.  This week, an anonymous call to the Houston SPCA brought the confiscation.  I read through the SPCA's on-line description and then went through their entire photo album of this incident.

Clearly the property is cluttered and in need of a few trips to the dump or at least some trash burning (FYI: they have to pay for the dump and we're under a burn ban, both making the disposal of trash for those in a financial crunch a bit difficult) but I couldn't help noticing that the majority of trash was within a fenced enclosure in the pics.  And maybe there were too many animals in some of the cages but I've seen more in the same size cages at pet stores.  And some of those cages were pretty nice and appeared reasonably clean.  The pony seemed plump, the dogs neither fat nor emaciated, the goat I just don't know enough to evaluate.  The others just don't look like the typical animals in need of rescue.

Looks to me like SPCA gone wild on this one.  Animal welfare seeing ducks as "wildlife" and others as "farm animals", no mention of "livestock" because they don't want to see any live animal as food.  Those "small mammals" may well be food for the "exotics" (snakes) but somehow I don't think the Houston SPCA would see that as a reason to crowd the small mammals for 1 second.  Sure looks to me like they're applying a pretty high "pet care" standard to the livestock in this case and then bootstrapping the taking of all these animals.  And darned if the Houston SPCA isn't getting plenty of PR for this great big "get"!

Late in the day, they announced they'd found 20+ dead animals but gave no description at all of the animals or where they were found.  If they'd been scattered around the property, it certainly seems they'd have found some of them through the day and, since they apparently didn't, it sounds like they found them together in a disposal area.  If one is running a livestock operation with 1,000+ live animals, they're certainly likely to have dead animals.  Are they supposed to run each one to the dump individually?

So, now the Houston SPCA has these 1,045 living creatures.  Houston SPCA says: "they are receiving proper nutritional and medical attention"  But WAIT, "Houston SPCA desperately needs need the following donated items:
·        Shredded paper for the gerbils and hamsters
·        Newspapers to use as bedding for the many birds in our care
·        Finch food
·        Parakeet food
·        Food for large Hook Bill birds
·        Chicken and Duck food"

Do they have the proper food for these birds and this "desperate need" is a sympathy ploy or do they not have the proper food for these animals?  Do they really have the facilities and manpower to care for the animals in one of the largest seizures of animals in the US or are they betting (the welfare of these animals) that the public will come through for them?  Or did they do this confiscation as a PR matter just to garner attention and donations?

They got the call concerning these animals this afternoon and started confiscating immediately.  Sure doesn't look like they made any attempt to work with the owner over any of them, just snatched them up, every single one including pets.  At this time, animals are property.  How is it possible to snatch up 1,045 animals in an afternoon and meet any form of even nominal due process?  Should those with livestock but not a farm be required to maintain the livestock to "pet" standards to avoid confiscation?  Are we setting the "pet standard" so high that the poor and struggling can no longer own pets?

More importantly, should the SPCA (or any others making confiscations) be required to have the manpower and supplies on hand or funds to purchase them on hand PRIOR to making confiscations?  I think they should as not having them may well put animals at risk of harm, perhaps worse than the potential harm from which they were removed.  We have seen something similar from our Texas CPS (although they keep renaming themselves).  They snatch up children without being able to ensure they have a better place for the child.  (They notoriously snatched up 400+ children in a religious community and ended up having to give them back.)  It seems to me that any governmental agency that is going to take living beings should be able to ensure they have a better place for them before removal.

Read the materials, watch the videos: Houston Chronicle, AP blurb as printed in the Houston Chronicle, CW local, CNN, NBC local, ABC local, and CBS local.  Is this an appropriate use of governmental authority?  Or did the law enforcement and Houston SPCA go to far?  Make up your own mind.

Then think about what the standard for care of animals should be and what circumstances warrant removal.  Let your lawmakers know what standards you want and push them to get it on the books in clear and plain language.  Without that, law enforcement and "welfare" groups are free to pick and choose.  They may skip the tough cases and go for the soft ones, those where the owners cooperate like this one did.  That's what our CPS appears to do and it leaves the most abused in place while putting the neglected in out right abusive situations.  Is this what we want for the animals too?

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