What Indigenous SPCA Is, and What It Is Not

SPCA is a familiar acronym. Most people know what it stands for.

Society. For the. Prevention of. Cruelty. To. Animals.

But there is more embedded in that word “society” than is usually acknowledged. Which society? And who was understood to be part of it?

When SPCAs were formed in nineteenth-century England, “society” referred to a particular group of people. Reformers. Clergymen. Parliamentarians. Like-minded individuals with shared moral concerns, political influence, and access to emerging civic institutions. They operated within a social order that assumed municipal authority, enforceable laws, tax bases, and proximity to services. Animal protection was framed as a public good, but it was embedded in a specific class structure and governance system.

That model did not remain in England. It travelled.

SPCAs were established in the northeastern United States, including New York, and later across Canada, largely replicating the same institutional assumptions. Municipal authority. Urban density. Stable tax bases. Permanent infrastructure. Over time, the model professionalized and became familiar. Its origins faded from view. Its design came to be treated as neutral.

Many Indigenous communities were never part of that social, political, or institutional arrangement.

As the SPCA model expanded, it was increasingly applied in places where its underlying assumptions did not hold. When animal-related harm occurred in communities without access to the infrastructure implied by “society,” the response often focused on individual behaviour, care, or culture, rather than on the absence of durable systems and authority. The model stayed fixed. When it did not fit, the mismatch was treated as a local problem rather than a design failure.

Indigenous SPCA exists to name that gap and to redesign community animal management around Indigenous governance, public health, and durable systems.

Here, SPCA stands for Safety for People, Communities, and Animals.

This is not an Indigenized version of existing SPCAs. Indigenizing a model that was designed around settler municipal governance does not correct its foundational assumptions. It leaves authority, accountability, and system design intact while changing the surface. That approach is not a solution. It is a misdiagnosis.

Indigenous SPCA is a structural redesign of community animal management. It is Indigenous-governed, grounded in public health, and oriented toward durable outcomes rather than episodic response. It responds to long-standing infrastructure and governance gaps, not to individual behaviour. It treats animal-related safety and health as ongoing public responsibilities, not as isolated animal welfare concerns.

This distinction matters because the prevailing frame has consequences.

When animal management is treated primarily as an animal welfare issue, attention gravitates toward individual animals, isolated incidents, and moments of visible harm. Interventions tend to be short-term and reactive. Success is measured by immediate relief rather than sustained conditions. Responsibility is often placed on individuals or communities without corresponding authority or resources.

These are not the stories that lead the news. They are the stories that appear once the forecast is out of the way, after the matters considered serious have already been addressed.

Public health asks different questions. It looks at patterns rather than incidents. It focuses on prevention rather than response. It is concerned with continuity, accountability, and exposure over time. From a public health perspective, animal-related harm is not a moral failure. It is a system performance issue.

This is why Indigenous SPCA does not treat the presence of free-roaming dogs or animals as inherently problematic. Animals moving through a community are not, in themselves, a failure. Risk arises when systems are absent, unclear, or unable to respond when harm does occur. The issue is not movement. It is management. It is whether communities have access to the authority, infrastructure, and continuity required to prevent preventable harm and respond safely when needed.

Indigenous governance changes what is possible in practice. Governance is not symbolic. It determines who sets priorities, who holds authority, and who is accountable when outcomes do not improve. Indigenous SPCA assumes that communities are best positioned to define what safety means in their context and to design systems that reflect their realities. That includes the ability to situate solutions within local law, knowledge, stories, and cultural practice, rather than forcing alignment with external institutional norms. That authority must be structural.

Indigenous SPCA does not reject the existence of SPCAs, nor does it seek to replace them wholesale. It does, however, refuse to center them as the default reference point. Legacy institutions may have roles within a redesigned landscape, but they are not positioned as the primary solution to problems that originate in structural absence rather than service delivery.

Indigenous SPCA is the public-facing expression of work led by Increased ACCESS, an Indigenous-led organization that serves as the system builder, policy vehicle, and convenor behind this redesign. Increased ACCESS undertakes the research, coordination, and policy engagement required to make redesigned systems viable over time.

This post is not about programs, logistics, or financing. It establishes the frame on which those conversations must rest. Durability, prevention, and long-term systems are central to Indigenous SPCA, but how those systems are supported will be addressed elsewhere.

Indigenous SPCA exists because safety, for people, communities, and animals, cannot be sustained without systems that were never put in place. Naming that fact clearly is not an accusation. It is a starting point.