Couple fined $700 after exotic animals seized from B.C. farm

A B.C. couple has been fined $700 and put on two years' probation after SPCA officers seized 87 animals from their farm, including a lynx, three parrots, 10 turtles, an alpaca and an assortment of 70 rabbits, hedgehogs, chinchillas, gerbils and mice.

Michelle Kuberski and Kenneth Bunker pleaded guilty to charges of animal cruelty and were sentenced last week in a Dawson Creek court, according to a statement released Monday morning by the B.C. SPCA.

The court instructed the couple to provide the SPCA with a list of all the remaining animals on their property and to grant the organization access to inspect the animals with only 24 hours' notice. 

The SPCA was first called to the property in northeastern B.C. after receiving a complaint of animal neglect and hoarding.

"We definitely had some major concerns about the care of the animals, including lack of water, poor sanitation and untreated injuries," said SPCA Special Provincial Const. Chad Bohana.

"The majority of the animals were housed in an outbuilding with no ventilation, feces built up in the cages, no water and cage sizes too small for the species."

Kuberski and Bunker will have to give away some 20 animals that remain on the farm, including horses, a boar, some wolf-dog hybrids and a coatimundi — a raccoon-like mammal native to Central and South America.

The seized animals have since been adopted or sent to wildlife facilities, said the SPCA