Transform Your Unwanted Collectibles or Household Items Into Cash for Abused or Neglected Animals!
The Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals is a fully functioning Mission Fish organization and ebay seller that is asking for your help to raise money for the support of New England’s largest equine rescue and rehabilitation facility. As a 501 (c)(3) public charity, the Society raises its funding from a variety of sources, including the sale of memberships and merchandise, together with the receipt of donations, memorial gifts, bequests and private grants. The Society neither seeks nor receives public funding or tax dollars from any local, state or federal government entity. As a Mission Fish funding recipient, the Society is also entitled the receipt of funds from other ebay sellers who may elect to donate through Mission Fish all or a portion of their profits to our cause.
This is the opportunity for the Society to sell your unwanted donated, gently used collectibles or household items. Unlike others who may use professional ebay sellers, the Society sells your donated items and retains all the profits to help support this year’s annual budget of $1.3 million dollars.
Society staff are available to receive your donated items (please, no used clothes, shoes, furniture or perishable items) at our administrative office located at 50 Gambo Road in South Windham, Maine between 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; other times by appointment. Drop by and leave with us your gently used, clean saleable items at our convenient garage storage room and we will do the rest. You will simplify your life, clear out your clutter and “do well by doing good for others.”
If you are interested in buying from our ebay site, our user i.d. is mainestatesocietyfortheprotectionofanimals. See you on ebay!
The Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals now offers you safe, secure payment options as never before. You may go to www.msspa.org and shop our online store, the LJK Korral or donate or purchase memberships for yourself or a family member or friend or make a gift in memory or honor of someone special.
Don’t like paying online? Now you may call us at 207-892-3040 (we are live at that number M – F between 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.; other times, please leave us a voice mail, we’ll return your call) to place your order or donation.
If you prefer the fax line, write your order, contact information, and credit card information on a sheet of paper and fax to: MSSPA – attention Tina or Meris – 207-892-8500. We will fill your request and confirm it in writing.
Of course, you are always welcome to make your paper check payable to the MSSPA and send it, along with your request or order to: P.O. Box 10, South Windham, Maine 04082-0010.
Our local press recently has focused attention on the challenging conditions facing Maine horses and those who work to rescue, rehabilitate, and re-home them. (Portland Press Herald, May 8, 2009) While the current financial conditions of both the local and global economy predictably make the proper care and keeping of a horse more expensive, the circumstances that lead to the abuse and neglect of horses are not limited to economic recession. The underlying causes of unwanted, neglected or abused horses are several and actually fairly simple.
A recent survey of the economic impact of the equine industry in Maine, funded in part by Maine’s harness racing industry, asserts there are 35,000 horses in Maine. A significant number of those horses are Standardbred horses, bred, born, or brought to Maine as part of Maine’s harness racing industry. A smaller number are performance or pleasure horses whose owners maintain them for recreational purposes. A smaller number still are horses who work in the woods or on farms in Maine. The smallest number of all, perhaps, is those who are kept strictly as pets. The great majority of Maine horses receive adequate feed, shelter and medical attention. In times of economic prosperity, the cost of providing for the basic needs of horses is easier to meet. Recession means not only the loss of income or reduction of disposable income, it also often translates into high costs of processed feed, hay, and basic necessary services like those of the farrier and veterinarian.
Unfortunately, there is no reliable data being kept that would quantify the scope of the current sad situation. Anecdotal evidence indicates that in Maine a larger number of horses than usual are being offered for free in classified listings or being surrendered to the few shelters that are able to accommodate them. Ms. Quimby’s recent story cites the State’s figure of 261 animal cruelty investigations involving horses, but gives no information regarding the actual number of complaints received by not only the Maine’s Department of Agriculture, but also by local animal control officers, municipal officials and police. In fact, the number of complaints involving horses is higher than the number of investigations and in all likelihood the number of equines who are starving or euthanized due to their owner’s inability to provide for them is higher still.
At the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals, we budget at a minimum $5,000.00 per horse per year. Many of the horses who are placed at the Society have experienced severe abuse or neglect and carry the effects of those crimes for the rest of their lives. As a result, many of the horses at the Society require ongoing medical attention that significantly increases their costs of care. It has always been the Society’s mission to provide everything that is necessary to restore these sadly damaged, beautiful animals to their full potential. The Society is a no-kill shelter and by policy does not euthanize any animal in its care unless the animal is experiencing severe pain and incurable suffering and by a qualified veterinarian’s recommendation. The Society limits its intake to those large animals, primarily horses, who have been seized by Maine law enforcement officials. If the animals are involved in litigation or their abuser has been charged with violation of Maine’s anti-cruelty statutes, the Society enters its appearance to assist in the prosecution and to pursue cost of care judgments against the offenders. The Society is unique in many respects, among them that it does not charge Maine government or taxpayers for the services it provides. The Society, like all equine rescue facilities in Maine, is required to be licensed at the modest fee of $100.00 per year. There are fewer than 10 licensed equine shelters in Maine at this writing. Equine shelters, other than the Society, are paid $12.00 per day per horse and reimbursed for the costs of medical and farrier care required by the animals.
Meris J. Bickford, Esq., Vice President of the Society and a member of Maine’s Animal Welfare Advisory Council, has participated in many discussions regarding the inadequacy of the various funding mechanisms that keep the Animal Welfare Program in operation. There is no question that the level of public funding is wholly inadequate to carry out the program’s statutory mandate. Knowing that the likelihood of additional public funding is non-existent for the foreseeable future, the AWAC has discussed various ways to increase the dollars available to investigate complaints and protect all Maine domestic animals large and small. As a result of hard work and persistence by many in the animal welfare community, this year’s legislative session produced the creation of an animal welfare license plate to assist in raising revenue for both the Animal Welfare Program and the Help Fix Me program, which subsidizes the spay / neuter of Maine dogs and cats. The session also saw the introduction of a proposal to license equine boarding stables. The proposal was not well met, but may have given impetus to form a study commission charged with reviewing the situation.
At the Society we believe the underlying causes of equine abuse and neglect in Maine are too many horses, too few people willing or able to adequately provide for the horses living in the state, insufficient resources for the enforcement of Maine’s excellent anti-cruelty laws, lack of understanding about the expenses associated with proper horse care, and the lack of an affordable, humane system to dispose of unwanted horses. Each of those causes has an obvious, though not necessarily appealing or feasible solution. A reduction in the number of horses being bred and born would help reduce the overall number of animals potentially falling into abuse or neglect. If more people could afford to or were willing to support one or more horses (regardless of ownership), additional resources, i.e., staff for enforcement, and additional education of potential and actual horse owners would all be of assistance in reducing the number of horses who suffer. Finally, a process of humane euthanasia and disposal or rendering would assist in reducing the number of unwanted horses. Although no one at the Society is a personal fan of equine slaughter as it existed for many decades in this country, we recognize that a process of truly humane euthanasia is preferable to death by starvation or medical neglect.
While those who are interested in the topic of equine welfare in Maine and across the nation continue the conversation about the causes and solutions of equine abuse and neglect, staff at the Society will lovingly go about their daily tasks of caring for horses and finding additional ways to meet the burgeoning budget for feed and medical care, while advocating on a larger scale for sensible solutions to the problem. It is the very least that must be done for the species that carried human civilization across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. From helping to cultivate and produce our food to providing horse-powered transportation, carrying countless thousands into the wars of men and dancing in the dreams people throughout the ages, horses have so willingly served human kind. Surely each one of these sensitive and sentient creatures deserves at the very least, the basics of adequate food, shelter, medical care, and affection.
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi