The Lunenburg SPCA has folded.
Cathie Billings, chair of the Lunenburg Branch, was the last of the local governing body to resign.
She did so in a scathing Facebook post on the branch’s page, garnering over 350 shares.
“It has become quite obvious that volunteers are not wanted or needed by Provincial SPCA in Lunenburg County other than to raise funds to forward to you,” reads the statement.
Billings complained of changes made to the local branches since amalgamating with the provincial body in 2016, including not using local vets.
But Elizabeth Murphy, CEO of the SPCA, says they still use local vets when needed.
However they use their own as much as possible to save money to help more animals.
“Even though we have those two hospitals and the mobile spay-neuter clinic … we still spent in 2017, $250,000 in additional veterinary care,” says Murphy.
Billings expressed concern with money being raised in the community not being spent locally.
“I cannot and will not continue to raise funds that I am told will be used for Lunenburg County animals but only have what you put on paper to show me,” reads the statement.
But Murphy insists all money raised in the community stays there.
Murphy says she thought they had worked well with locals and regrets the loss of the local group.
“Going through the merge, it was a priority for me to really work with the volunteers, to keep all of those volunteers and I really feel we were meeting with them.”
She says when implementing mandates or making changes they collaborated with the community.
Billings also raised concerns about some locals were being told to adopt from city-based shelters or to take their pets to the SPCA’s animal hospitals in the HRM.
However, Murphy says Lunenburg continues to rely local fosters, though she says it can be hard to get people to volunteer for that position.
Lunenburg SPCA does not have a physical shelter.
Because of that, Murphy says it’s key to have local volunters and praised the former volunteers for their work in the community.
She says they are hoping to revive the branch but right now Billings has removed the provincial members as administrators on the branch’s Facebook page.
Once they are able to communicate better with the community, Murphy says they will work on regrouping.
Billings declined to comment for this story.