...Moncton SPCA girl had babies..they're gone!

Advertise with us
Shop with us on Ebay
Fins us on Amazon
The Rat Shack Forum

Help Support The Rat Shack Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Dahlas said:
I am afraid I tend to think like nattykins....the shelter disposed of the babies....hoping no one knew about them....probably on purpose. Maybe not known by all.
Click to expand...

I guess the question is how this was done. If this occured and a vet didn't put them "to sleep" then it's truely unethical and cruel. This is so appaling and even worse that it happened at the SPCA. I hope it doesn't get swept under the carpet because the people involved need to learn some lessons.
 
Even though I have witnessed "magically" disappearing mice, hamsters, among other things. I am surprised that no one knew about them...hell at KW a they might have been notorious for killing mice but dwarf hamster babies would disappear too (but by going to homes with shelter staff before going up for adoption. ~ In all honesty and fairness to KW they "may" not have killed all the mice that ever came in during the four years I was there and they "could" have been taken home by some shelter staff...mind you I have heard them talking (jokingly) about drowning mice although I didn't think it was funny.

The only time they ligitemately euthanized mice was when Kitchener got those 4000 mice from that crazy lady. The 4000 came from just two mice so they were all deformed and disgusting so they all were euthanized.

I hate what can go on at shelters just becuase people don't care enough. I think that if you don't love all animals you shouldn't work at the shelter. I went to Cambridge SPCA to visit and they had a rat in, they made me take the rat to the Animal Control office another room (technically another building but side by side) to visit with her. The shelter staff was terrified of her. :(
 
I remember speaking to an ecologist and he told me he found it funny that people who claimed to love animals were still "species-ist". I guess you can love all animals equally, just some more equally than others!! The thing is - it's not even like rats are particularly 'gross' looking. I'd hate to see how they treated 'ugly' animals!
 
I too am still waiting for a reply to my email.

I would suggest that everyone write polite, but concerned letters or emails to the Moncton SPCA, Moncton NB politicians, newspapers and possibly your own newspapers. Please express your concern and ask for an expanation.
I am away right now but will try to add names and addresses soon in case anyone is willing.

The Moncton SPCA is one of the two shelters in the provience that regularly takes in rats. It may be too late to help these babies but something needs to happen for the sake of the next rats they get in.
 
I received a reply:

"Hello,
The shelter manager is away and should be back Monday, I have sent her all your [*everyone's] e-mails. She will respond as soon as she gets them.
Thank you for your concerns.
April Saulnier"

So, no, it looks like it definitely is too late for these babies since no one was left in charge in her absence who could properly address it. :thumbup:
 
I emailed the NB SPCA today as well this is what I wrote.

To Whom it may concern:

I wanted to inform you of something that I witnessed at the Moncton SPCA. On Monday Oct 13th I went to the shelter to check on two of the rats that were brought in. There was a male and a female that had been found together so I knew there was a possibility she could be pregnant. When I got there I noticed they were on pine shavings, which is extremely dangerous for rats because of their weak repertory systems. Also they had cat food in their dish. I am uncertain why they would have cat food as they should be fed lab blocks and I donated a lot of lab blocks that should have lasted them well over 6 months. This is not my biggest problem.

When I got there the female did in fact have 5 babies that looked to be around 2-3 days old.

I asked the staff when she had her babies and they did not even know she had them! How they could not know she had babies is beyond me because newborn rats make a very distinctive eeping noise and the punch clock is directly in front of where the rats cage was.

I came back on Thursday to check on them again and possibly adopt them. I was shocked to see the babies were no longer there. I asked the staff what happened to the babies and they did not know. How can they not know what happened to 5 newborn babies?

Mother rats will sometimes eat their dead or dying young but this would not be the case in this situation as these babies were in perfect health and had great milk bands. Plus the mother was very protective of the babies. I very much hope that they were not thrown out when someone changed the litter and I very much hope that they were not disposed of by the staff.

I would like someone to look into this. I have already emailed a Heather at the Moncton SPCA but have yet to receive an answer. Other people know about this and other people will be sending emails to her and you that are from other shelters in different provinces. One friend of mine has done so when I had told her that these rats were on pine and she received a response that they were not on pine and that they were on care fresh.

This is not true because I saw that they were on pine and I have pictures to prove this fact. I have since adopted the female and male rat to get them out of those horrible conditions. I regret that I did not do it the first day I was there because then those 5 babies would still be alive.

I hope someone will look into what happened and that this will not be brushed aside just because they are rats. All animals should be treated the same as dogs and cats there should be no favouritism. I sincerely believe that if a dog had puppies or a cat had kittens while at the shelter they would not have just disappeared. I know the staff does not like the rats much as I was told by volunteers that when there are rats they don't get handled because people think they are gross or are afraid of them. This is very unprofessional. If they decide to work in a shelter that takes in more then just dogs and cats they should be prepared to work with any other animal that comes in.

I hope someone will be able to find out what happened to these 5 babies and inform me as to what happened to them.

Thank You


I still have not gotten any reply from the SPCA. You're lucky Jherek that you got at least a small acknowledgment. I hope with all of us sending in emails they will see how serious this problem is. Thank you for all your help!
 
lindsayfawn,
Please send a copy of your email/letter to each of the NB papers, your city rep., mayor and your prov. rep., and the premier.

Still waiting to hear back from the Moncton SPCA :(
 
I have yet to hear back from the SPCA either. I'm just wondering if I should send those letters to the places you mentioned SQ? We were wondering about this because where we don't have Henri and Clark does but it was us that adopted him so technically he should be with us.
I suppose we could also say he died if they asked?
 
You could say that he is staying with a friend who has boys ....
Which is the truth.

after all, you can't have him at your place until/unless he is neutered because of the reaction of your girls.

btw, Clark has him up for adoption along with quite a few other rats ...
 
Heather responded: "Nanette Pearl is our shelter manager."

I responded: "So I assume you have forwarded my e-mails and all related inquiries/complaints to her by now?"

Since I have not heard back from Nanette and the other lady who e-mailed me did not mention this, I would suggest everyone, regardless of the response I get to my last reply, forward all your e-mails to Nanette at [email protected] . It's very sad that the two people I've now dealt with have not bothered to actively look in to this. If e-mails had been redirected to the proper people immediately, and they had taken the time to let us know they were at least looking into this, perhaps something could have been done. At this point, they've proven their apathy. :\

RATMAN - see above for the e-mail address.

Dear Nanette,

I am many others are very concerned about the five little baby rats that were born in the Moncton SPCA's care. On October 14th, someone came in to find that the rat in your care, Elizabeth, had given birth to 5 babies. The staff was unaware of this. As of October 16th, the babies have disappeared, and no one on staff can tell us what has happened to them; indeed, some still apparently didn't even know about them. We have been trying and trying to get assistance from the Moncton SPCA in finding out what happened to these little babies, but to no avail. It has now been 4 days since they apparently "went missing" and, if it was indeed an accident, it is now obviously too late for them.

Since the 16th, our e-mails were simply ignored--however, it is apparent that April was checking Heather's e-mail in her absence, and yet she did not forward them to you or suggest we do so so that perhaps these little babies could have been saved. I finally received a very impassive response from Heather today of "Nanette is the shelter manager," without even the assurance that you have been made aware of the numerous concerns and complaints she has received. I can only assume that she did not forward the various e-mails to you. I have attached my e-mails below along with the responses I received.

Please do us the courtesy of acknowledging our concerns and assure us that the appropriate actions are being taken to find out what happened to these babies.
Click to expand...
 
how many people actually work there? if someone messed around with her cage she couldve killed and eaten them 2-3 days old doesnt protect them from this. but someone needs to account for what happened to them since they were told about their existance, theres no excuse for apathy by an animal rescue group. :redhot:
 
I emailed both of these women about this last Thursday, after it was posted on here.
And the missing babies were brought to the attention of the shelter staff last week as soon as Lindsayfawn discovered they were gone.

We suspect they were killed in a nonhumane manner by an nonqualified employee (ie not by a qualified vet). Obviously those people are hoping we will just go away.

So please cc everything to politicians and media.
Otherwise the admin at this shelter will think they are not responsible to the public and who knows what they will do to the next rats that are surrendered to them

And to make matters worse, from what Lindsey said, the little rattie girl got pregnant because this shelter placed the boy and girl into the same cage!!
 
Their internet ad posting the two for adoption said that.
However a staff member told Lindsey that the two rats have been in the shelter for a month and a half .... so she had to have gotten pregnant after arriving at the shelter. :sad3:

found it (from Friday):

Also I found an interesting peice of news that Elizabeth and Henri were in the SPCA at the time that Molly, Zenna and Thai were. She said they were not up for adoption at the time. She had said that Elizabeth was mean to Molly and didn't want them in the same cage. I had to tell her that that was how rats acted when they are territorial bla bla bla. She was annoyed by my smart answers I guess 'cause she kept trying to make up excuses 'n what not to make me sound wrong.
If Elizabeth and Henri were in there when our first 3 SPCA girls were then that has to mean that Henri and Elizabeth were in the same cage together for a while because we have had the girls now for well over a month and a half. So If they had of separated them at first she probably wouldn't have had babies and now those poor babies would be MIA.
Click to expand...
 
SQ said:
Their internet ad posting rthe two for adoption said that.
However a staff member told Lindsey that the two rats have been in the shelter for a month and a half .... so she had to have gotten pregnant after arriving at the shelter. :sad3:
Click to expand...


Horrible! :redhot:
 
You could say that he is staying with a friend who has boys ....
Which is the truth.after all, you can't have him at your place until/unless he is neutered because of the reaction of your girls.
btw, Clark has him up for adoption along with quite a few other rats ...
Click to expand...

Yeah that's true. I knew he'd be up for adoption. Henri is in better care with Clark then the SPCA that is why we adopted him at the same time as Elizabeth. There was no way I was going to leave him there with those people.

I'm going to send off some more emails. I have yet to receive any emails from anyone yet which is annoying. If I find out that the SPCA got rid of the babies I want to try and make sure that no rat will go there ever again. That is unacceptable. There is no reason for them to have killed them when they could have called Clark or me (where I had adopted the last 3 girls before). So stupid that this has not been resolved yet! I'm severely pissed.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top