Surrey BC SPCA to host behind-the-scenes centre tour for the public
The animal rescue shelter hopes attendees will learn more about its work through the tour
The non-profit animal rescue organization conducts annual cruelty investigations and provides sanctuary for animals. (Submitted)
The BC Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in Surrey will host a behind-the-scenes tour of its facility on Feb. 17, allowing the public to learn more about what the centre does while meeting its animals.
The Surrey BC SPCA Centre is one of the non-profit’s 31 facilities in the province. The animal rescue organization provides temporary sanctuary for tens of thousands of animals and carries out about 8,000 cruelty investigations annually, its website reads.
“We started with the tours back last summer,” says Layla Gilhooly, manager of the Surrey BC SPCA Centre. “They were quite well received at that time … so we continued doing them, and we do them on every stat holiday, except for Christmas Day.”
The tour is free, but donations are encouraged as the BC SPCA is a non-profit organization, meaning it relies solely on public donations, Gilhooly says. This makes finding ways to engage with the community and show them the importance of the work the BC SPCA does especially important, she adds.
“We felt that people didn’t necessarily know exactly what we do at our centre in Surrey, so we wanted to invite people in and give them the opportunity to meet with some of the animals,” Gilhooly says.
Visitors will be shown around the Surrey BC SPCA Centre’s three facilities, which are all on its property.
“They’ll go through our adoption centre, which is where we have all of the animals who are ready for adoption,” Gilhooly says. “So that will be small animals, like rabbits [and] guinea pigs. Sometimes we have hamsters and budgies, rats, mice, and then also cats.”
The second building is the shelter’s cat-holding facility, which takes in large groups of cats that often come from hoarding situations, Gilhooly says. The third building is the barn, which is the only one of its kind among BC SPCAs in the Fraser Valley.
“We take in a variety of different species there,” Gilhooly says. “Goats seem to be quite popular coming into care, but we’ve also had a water buffalo and cow, and we recently had eight llamas and a peacock.”
The number of animals that come into the Surrey BC SPCA’s care vary throughout the year, Gilhooly says, with January to March seeing about 20 animals to the summer months seeing around 50 to 60.
Gilhooly hopes the tour introduces attendees to some of the programs the BC SPCA offers and the work it does within the community.
“Lots of people just see the BC SPCA as a place for adopting animals, and obviously that is one of the things we do, but there’s also so many other things that we offer,” she says, adding that the Surrey centre has a pet food bank, low-income spay and neuter programs, and companion animals.
“Surrey is the fastest growing city in B.C., and not too far into the future, it’s going to be the largest city in B.C.,” Gilhooly says. “It’s really important that, as well as the people, we’re also taking care of the animals in the community.”
Gilhooly says she finds working at the Surrey BC SPCA Centre “extremely rewarding.”
“It can be challenging physically, and emotionally, as well — seeing some of the situations that the animals have come from [and] seeing them going through illness. But the reward when you have been able to make them better and get them adopted into a home [is] really special to me.”
To learn more about the tour and to register for the event, visit www.bit.ly/SPCAtour.
