What’s wrong with this picture? What does the RSPCA do for logo animals?

“Some animals are more equal than others.”

            LONDON,  U.K.––What is wrong with this picture,  or rather the series of 19 pictures of animals who in various arrangements form the new logo of the Royal SPCA of Great Britain?

ANIMALS 24-7 will weigh that question several paragraphs later.

Spoiler:  what is wrong has nothing to do with the animal silhouettes on brightly colored squares,  nor anything to do with the variety of animals depicted.

The RSPCA has long needed to add color,  to become more broadly active on behalf of all animals,  and––frankly––to become a bit brighter.

“A new RSPCA for every kind”

Before proceeding to the ANIMALS 24-7 logo critique  it is only fair to allow RSPCA chief executive Chris Sherwood to unveil the new logo,  which he described on April 11,  2024 as representative of “A new RSPCA for every kind.”

Note that Sherwood,  39,  has been RSPCA chief executive since 2015.

“New” in his estimation appears to be strictly relative.

“Animals are now facing some of the biggest challenges in our 200-year history,”  Sherwood said,  six months ahead of the formal 200th birthday of the formation of the RSPCA in a London coffee house,  coming up on October 16,  2024.

Who took animal welfare off the agenda?

“From climate change to loss of habitat,  intensive farming to the cost of living crisis,”  Sherwood continued,  “unless we act urgently to put animal welfare back on the agenda as one of the most pressing issues of our time,  we risk animals’ lives getting worse,  not better.”

Who took animal welfare off the agenda?

Sherwood did not discuss that,  but acknowledged that,  “We haven’t rebranded since the 1970s,  and it was holding us back from being the modern, forward-facing organization we really want,  and need,  to be.”

How exactly a logo holds back policy,  Sherwood did not explain.

“We are not always loved”

Elaborated Tracey Pritchard,  who identifies herself as director of engagement and income generation at RSPCA,  “Nearly everyone has heard of the RSPCA,  and many people have an opinion about us.  Ninety-three per cent awareness in England and Wales is a huge asset to any charity,  but while we are almost universally known,  we are not always loved.

“We haven’t rebranded for more than 50 years,”  said Pritchard,  echoing Sherwood in putting something the RSPCA has not done in front of any mention of recent substantial accomplishment.

“There was no hiding from the fact,”  Pritchard said,  “that our old brand was not leaving the right impression on our audiences.  We heard words like institutional,  cold,  and distant.

“Right between the eyes”

“But the one that really hit me between the eyes,”  Pritchard emphasized,  “was ‘intimidating’ – a far cry from how we need and want to be perceived and who we really are.”

That hit ANIMALS 24-7 right between the eyes,  because among our most recent 25 years of electronic files pertaining to the RSPCA,  containing 3,233 news items,  only 34 include the words “intimidating.”

Almost all of those mentions describe dangerous dogs whom the RSPCA did little or nothing to keep from wreaking havoc.

This is nuts

“At Prostate Cancer UK,”  Pritchard continued,  “where I worked as executive director of engagement,  the brand went through a major transformation.  It became a bold, striking, positive brand that men and their families identify so strongly with,  that they have it tattooed on their bodies.”

Some people will wear a tattoo of anything.

As to whether anyone seeing the Prostate Cancer UK logo has any idea at a glance what it stands for,  the notion is nuts.

ANIMALS 24-7 includes the Prostate Cancer UK logo here to make the point.

“Elements of this logo worth spotlighting”

Before ANIMALS 24-7 proceeds to “What is wrong with this picture?”,   contrast the Sherwood/Pritchard logo introduction to the introduction offered by then-Humane Society of the U.S. president Wayne Pacelle when HSUS last rebranded,  in 2007,  adopting a similar theme.

(Pacelle now heads Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy.)

“There are three elements of this logo worth spotlighting,”  Pacelle said.

“First,  there are 18 different animals in the logo.  These are animals of all types,  visually demonstrating that we work to protect all animals — not just predators,  or dogs and cats,  or farm animals.  Your HSUS is there for all animals.

“A map of the United States”

“Second,  the animals collectively represent a map of the United States.  This configuration conveys the national reach of our work.  The industries that do harm to animals — factory farming, the fur trade,  animal fighting syndicates,  puppy mills — are of a national and global scope,  and they cannot be successfully challenged at a local level alone.

“Third,”  Pacelle explained,  “you won’t see images of injured or bloodied animals.

“While we work to fight against abuse and exploitation,  and while we expose the consequences of human — caused cruelty when we must,  we imagine a world where animals are healthy and alive.  We celebrate the lives of animals,  and that’s our goal — to prevent cruelty and to see them healthy and well.”

Ten animals in common

The animals depicted in the HSUS logo include ten of those also included in the new RSPCA logo:  cat,  chicken,  cow,  dog,  horse, pig,  rabbit,  seal,  sheep,  and wild bird.

The HSUS logo also includes a beaver,  a dolphin,  a monkey,  a puma,  a raccoon,  and a whale.  Three dogs appear,  including a pit bull.

While ANIMALS 24-7 is often critical of HSUS actions and inactions,  including their pit bull promotions,  we can identify something HSUS has recently done on behalf of every species shown in the HSUS logo.

Omitting six species from the HSUS logo roster,  none of them native to the United Kingdom,  the RSPCA roster adds a badger,  a fish,  a fox,  a hedgehog,  an ambiguous elk or deer,  a possible guinea pig whose species identity is uncertain,  a mouse,  and a squirrel.

What has the RSPCA done for any of them lately?

Apart from the question of why the RSPCA logo now includes a period,  like a giant stumbling block,  after the lettering,  what has the RSPCA done for any of the depicted species lately?

ANIMALS 24-7 scanned both the web via Google and our own inventory of 3,233 news items pertaining to the RSPCA to find out.

Listing the RSPCA logo species in alphabetical order,  and for each species summarizing the most recent item we found:

(Skip to the bottom for conclusions drawn from the evidence.)

Badger

Lancashire Telegraph,  October 5,  2023 –– A former jockey has been sent to prison after footage on his mobile phone showed him illegally fighting two dogs with a badger in Lancashire.

Brandon Lawlor,  23,  pleaded guilty to one offense contrary to the Protection of Badgers Act 1991 in a prosecution brought by the RSPCA.

Bee

Wrote Natural England chair Tony Juniper in one of 19 essays collectively titled “What Have Animals Ever Done for Us?”,  distributed by the RSPCA on June 11,  2022:

“Tropical rainforests are another vast and vitally important system that removes carbon from the atmosphere…The myriad plants that inhabit these moist,  warm forests are nearly all pollinated by bees,  wasps,  ants,  butterflies and beetles (and some by birds and bats).

The RSPCA appears never to have mentioned any of the major pesticide threats to bees,  in particular the neonicotinoid class of agricultural insecticides.

Bird

Barnsley Chronicle,  January 26,  2024 –– “A pensioner who was found guilty of gunning down a protected bird of prey has been left with a bill of more than £2,000 after an RSPCA investigation landed him in court.”

Lack of RSPCA attention to birds led to the formation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in 1889.  The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds does the majority of bird-related advocacy within the United Kingdom.

Cat 

Reported Jemima Webber for Plant Based News on February 9,  2022:  “The RSPCA U.K. has removed two pet cats from Kurt Zouma’s care following animal cruelty accusations made against the soccer player,  days after a video of Zouma drop-kicking and slapping his Bengal cat went viral.”

Surprised that no more recent RSPCA action on behalf of cats had come to our attention,  ANIMALS 24-7 searched online,  learning from Vet Times U.K. that in April 2024 “The RSPCA urged pet owners to ensure their pets are neutered,  amid fears that more cats than ever could be abandoned or given up during the current kitten season.

“More than 7,500 cats were reported as abandoned to the RSPCA last year,”  the Vet Times article mentioned,  “while around half of the nearly 144,000 feline cruelty reports logged in the past three years were made during kitten season.”

Chicken

Chris Sherwood in January 2024 announced that improving the lives of chickens would be a focal campaign for the RSPCA this year.  However,  summarized Poultry World,  “Anger over a number of new requirements for free-range and barn members being proposed for adoption by the RSPCA Assured scheme,”  a farmed animal welfare certification program,  “has prompted a climbdown by the animal welfare charity.”

            (For details,  see How 725 million chickens lost the Super Bowl, & got a bum deal in U.K. too.)

Cow  

Holly Bishop of the tabloid television network GBnews.com alleged on April 12,  2024 that “The RSPCA has enraged farmers by comparing cattle farming to stepping on a snail in a new video.”

That,  however,  appears to be a significantly distorted description of a video clip in which a hand moves a snail out of a road.

The RSPCA view of dairy farming may be more accurately represented by a 2017 statement in which spokesperson David Bowles objected that a Go Vegan World advertisement  “used very emotive and anthropomorphic language,  applying human emotions to a calf or dairy cow.  I don’t believe we have scientific evidence to support that,”  said Bowles,  who still represents the RSPCA.

Deer or Elk

If the two cervid categories “deer” and “elk” are regarded as surrogates for all wildlife,  Daily Mail deputy science editor Xantha Leatham on February 11,  2024 reported that “Roadside litter injures,  traps or kills 10 animals every day, the RSPCA has revealed.”

If the record is limited to cervids,  the BBC on January 20,  2024 reported that,  “The RSPCA is searching for a man who struck an injured deer on the head with a hammer,”  in November 2023.

The RSPCA in 2019 announced that it “opposes recreational hunting,  or the act of stalking or pursuing an animal and then killing it for sport,  due to the inherent and inevitable pain and suffering caused.”

Dog    

The Dog Control Coalition,  whose members are the RSPCA,  Dogs Trust,  and the Kennel Club,  continues to doggedly resist XL Bully ban enforcement regulations promulgated by the U.K. Department for Environment,  Food & Rural Affairs.

This same Dog Control Coalition in 1991 persuaded Parliamentarians who did not do their research that “Staffordshires” are not pit bulls and are a traditional British breed.

Of the 85 dogs involved in 64 fatal dog attacks occurring in the United Kingdom since the introduction of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991,  70 were of breeds exempted from prohibition through the efforts of the Dog Control Coalition.

If the ratio of fatal dog attacks on other dogs to fatal dog attacks on humans is the same in the United Kingdom as in the United States,  Dog Control Coalition lobbying on behalf of pit bull type dogs may have been responsible for approximately 4,160 fatal maulings of other dogs.

(See RSPCA trumps Dogs Trust & Kennel Club in political hypocrisy contest.)

Fish  

Scottish activist Don Staniford on September 28, 2022 forward to ANIMALS 24-7 “a dossier of photos showcasing disease-ridden salmon taken by Scottish Government health inspectors during visits to salmon farms.

“How can such abuse be marketed,  Staniford asked,  “as ‘responsible’ and ‘welfare-friendly’ via RSPCA Assured and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council?”

ANIMALS 24-7 still does not know,  because the RSPCA still has not explained.

Fox   

Reported The Times on March 25,  2024,  “A fox hunter who “supervised” the throwing of a live fox to a pack of hounds during a Christmas Eve hunt has been told to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work.

“Thomas Ledbury,  38,  was working for the Avon Vale hunt as a terrier man when he was caught on camera supervising another man digging a fox out of the earth before throwing it to a pack of hounds.

“Chief Inspector Will Mitchell, from the RSPCA’s special operations unit,  led the investigation.”

Guinea pig

ANIMALS 24-7 presumes the guinea pig,  if it is a guinea pig,  is a surrogate for all animals used in laboratories.

Unfortunately,  while the RSPCA offers many web pages of information about keeping guinea pigs as pets,  it says relatively little about use of animals in biomedical research.

Sorcha Bradley of The Week reported on January 23,  2024,  however,  that “Animal welfare charity the RSPCA has deep concerns about [cloning monkeys], arguing that there is ‘no immediate application’ for the study.”

Hedgehog  

“The RSPCA is asking anyone with information to contact them after tortured hedgehogs were found in Frome,”  Phoebe Hobbs reported for MSN on May 3,  2024.

“Grisly images of dead hedgehogs have been circulating on social media after allegedly being found on Saturday,  April 13 on Cuckoo Lane,”  Hobbs said.

Horse  

“An owner has pleaded guilty to four animal welfare offenses involving 10 horses,”  Horse & Hound reported on May 4,  2024.

“Dianne Pearson,  70,  of Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire,  was disqualified from owning equids indefinitely when she was sentenced at Kirklees Magistrates’ Court on April 16.

“Concerns about the horses were raised with the RSPCA and World Horse Welfare in April 2023.  “Pearson admitted that one horse had not been out of his stable for two years.”

Mouse

The Bolton News on May 1,  2024 reported that,  “The RSPCA has shared how you can get rid of mice and rats in your home or garden without killing them.”

Two weeks earlier,  Harrow Online mentioned that “The RSPCA has released an image of a mouse on a glue trap that was found in Hillingdon to highlight the sad reality of the inhumane devices.”

Pig  

In August 2018 “the RSPCA put their name to a joint statement with Compassion in World Farming to demand an end to” gassing pigs with carbon dioxide as a slaughter method,  “by 2024,”  Andy Wells reported for Yahoo News.

On March 7,  2024,  Max Stephens reported for The Telegraph,  “Vegan activists demonstrated at the RSPCA headquarters in West Sussex “over RSPCA Assured status [being given] to abattoirs using carbon dioxide to stun animals.”

Rabbit  

As of October 2023,  a variety of British media reported,  the RSPCA had begun an investigation into illegal hare coursing after nine dead hares were found dumped along an Essex roadside.

“Rural communities have suffered a steep rise in hare coursing,”  Telegraph senior news reporter Patrick Sawer reported on January 30,  2021,  “with the RSPCA saying the growing involvement of gangs in wildlife crimes is a major factor in its decision to hand over its 200-year-old prosecuting powers to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

The RSPCA retreat from actually prosecuting the crimes it investigates echoes similar retreats in recent decades by the American SPCA,  the Massachusetts SPCA,  the Pennsylvania SPCA,  the Ontario SPCA,  and many others.

(See Rather than kill pit bulls, Ontario SPCA quits busting dogfights.)   

Seal  

“The RSPCA has paused releasing rescued seals into a Lincolnshire river after concern they have been damaging fish stocks,”  due to complaints from the Angling Trust,  the BBC reported on May 1,  2024.

This report followed a March 8,  2024 report from Jessica Barnes of the Warrington Guardian that,  “A Rivers Edge resident has slammed animal charity RSPCA,  following the discovery of a sick and injured seal found on a riverbed near to the housing estate.”

Recounted the resident,  Amy Heywood,  “The seal had in fact been around for about six weeks.  I reported this incident first on February 8,  2024.”

Heywood told Barnes she had been called back by two RSPCA staffers,  “one who first reported that the charity had gone out and moved the seal to a treatment center,”  which did not happen,  “and another 30 minutes later who told her that the wildlife sanctuary and a vet would be coming to give the seal medication.”

That did not happen,  either.  Eventually the seal disappeared.

Former Animal Concern Scotland chief executive John Robins objected for years that the RSPCA was,  and is,  “not only continuing to endorse the shooting of seals by RSPCA Assured salmon farmers,  but actually telling those farmers they can break the law protecting seals.”

(See Complaining that seals cause “stress,” farm cuts gills from salmon alive.)

Sheep  

The BBC on March 18,  2024 described recent dog attacks on sheep kept by Jonathan Shorrock “on moorland near the Singing Ringing Tree in Burnley.”

The RSPCA reportedly dispatches veterinarians 10-20 times a year to euthanize the injured sheep,  but takes no action against the dog owners beyond urging them to keep their dogs on leads.

“Dogs running free might not look like they are chasing sheep,  but the sheep can be spooked and leave their lambs,”  Shorrock said.

“It’s not just the sheep.  There are ground-nesting birds that can’t settle to nest because dogs are running free and upsetting them,”  Shorrock added.

(See subheading Bird,  above.)

Back on September 22,  2021,  RSPCA head of campaigns and public affairs David Bowles blogged,  “Here at the RSPCA,  we’ve been campaigning to ban live animal exports for more than half a century,”  a traffic chiefly involving lambs and calves.

“Today,”  Bowles said,  “we’re thrilled that the Government has announced a consultation into finally ending the suffering of farm animals shipped on grueling journeys from the U.K. to the Continent.

So the government finally agreed to discuss the matter.  The Animal Welfare Science,  Ethics and Law Veterinary Association warned in September 2023 that the “consultation” appeared to have come to nothing.  That does not appear to have changed.

Squirrel  

Sky News on March 13,  2024 said it had “discovered nearly 500 members of catapult [slingshot] groups on WhatsApp,  in which more than 350 photos and videos have been shared of animals,”  including squirrels,  birds,  and hares,  who “have been killed or wounded with the weapons.”

The RSPCA described the material in the groups as ‘horrendous’ and told Sky News that killing animals with slingshots is an ‘emerging trend,’”  but did not mention doing anything in response.

So, asking again, what’s wrong with this picture?

Among the 19 species depicted in the new RSPCA logo,  Badger,  Bird,  Deer or Elk,  Fox,  Hedgehog,  Mouse,  Rabbit,  and Squirrel are wildlife suffering most prominently from human activity chiefly through recreational mayhem,  although in vastly greater numbers from pest control and laboratory use.

The RSPCA appears to have a relatively good record of responding to single-animal cases involving these species,  while responding only with hand-wringing to mayhem on a larger scale,  exemplified by the slingshotting described by Sky News.

Bee,  Chicken,  Cow,  Fish,  Guinea Pig,  Pig,  Seal,  and Sheep suffer primarily from economic activity.  The RSPCA response to economically motivated exploitation and abuse ranges from inept to nil,  with some hand-wringing on the side,  falling well short of suggesting that people who care about animals should simply not eat them.

Cat,  Dog,  and Horse,  as companion animal species,  receive the most RSPCA attention on a day-to-day basis,  but it is inescapable that bully breed dogs are favored in institutional policy and practice above all others,  including smaller dogs,  cats,  horses,  sheep,  and wildlife,  despite occasional prosecutions of fox hunters and hare coursers.

Nineteen animals are given equal representation in the new RSPCA logo,  but to paraphrase George Orwell,  credited with defining “doublespeak” as often observed in RSPCA official statements,  “Some animals are more equal than others.”

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