As many of you may recall, the East Bay Regional Park District shot and killed at least 18 cats in the San Francisco Bay area just over a year ago. When first questioned about the missing cats, the Park District lied and said the cats had been taken to local shelters. Since that day, the Park District has been called out on many lies, but never quite so swiftly and irrefutably as in this video.

The video shows part of a public meeting of the Natural and Cultural Resources Committee of the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) held on February 25, 2021, when the topic of how to manage community cats was finally being discussed and decided.

Ahead of this meeting, EBRPD Assistant General Manager Kristina Kelchner had prepared a long and colorful presentation full of skewed and distorted information. She’d stated that the massacre of the cat colony was in accordance with the ASPCA's position regarding community cats. Kelchner had falsely claimed that the ASPCA does in fact "recommend humane interventions as much as possible, but there is a last resort where if endangered species are significantly at risk, that lethal control may, unfortunately, need to be used." It turns out that this is not ASPCA’s position.

After her visual presentation, it was time for her to begin reading emails sent in by the public. It is truly priceless to watch her struggle as she reads an email from Susan Riggs, ASPCA Senior Director of State Legislation. Kelchner soon finds herself in the truly awkward position of reading out loud the ASPCA's actual position, not the one Kelchner seems to have used for her presentation, which "clarified" ASPCA’s position and concluded with, "in no case, however, should cats be shot or otherwise dealt with by lethal means."

More recently, on December 21, the final meeting of EBRPD's Board of Directors was held for 2021. It is interesting to note that the Board members said they would not read any email or voicemail comments aloud! 

Also conspicuously missing from the agenda was any mention of EBRPD's contract with USDA's Wildlife Services, which will end on December 31, 2021.

As you can see in this video, EBRPD staff do not merely seek to conceal the truth; they are more than willing to present incorrect information in an attempt to legitimize and sanitize their abhorrent policies. Do you trust them to do the right thing when they finally discuss whether or not to renew their USDA Wildlife Services murder-for-hire contract? Did they already renew it in secrecy without holding any meetings? 

Please send our letter and urge the Park District to sever ties with these wildlife assassins. EBRPD must implement effective, humane, and non-lethal solutions for wildlife management issues!