The Los Angeles Times recently reported on the sharp increase in animal killing at Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS): cat killing is up 32% year-to-date, kitten killing has increased 43%, and dog killing is up as well.
The current LA Times article is about the pound in the City of Los Angeles. Marcia Mayeda runs the pound system for the County of Los Angeles, which is separate.
But that doesn’t mean your comments are not still spot on, as the Los Angeles County’s Department of Animal Care & Control (LACDACC) has been described as a “death camp.” That’s according to a different investigation by the Los Angeles Times a few years ago that showed LACDACC was also killing more dogs despite declining intakes, “promises to save them,” and building new “state-of-the-art” facilities they claimed would reduce it.
While the investigation showed that staff members violate their own policies when killing dogs, fail to reach out to rescue groups before killing them, and lack sufficient public access hours when working people can visit and adopt animals, the authors missed a crucial reason that explains the alarming increase in killing: staff also choose to kill dogs by preventing non-profit organizations and No Kill shelters from saving them even when they request to do so.
To prevent these killings, rescuers sued Los Angeles County under the Hayden Law, which makes that illegal. In a significant victory for rescuers, the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that under that law, California shelters cannot kill dogs rescuers are willing to save unless those dogs are irremediably suffering or have a documented history of vicious and dangerous behavior. After asking the Court of Appeal to reconsider, which the Court declined to do, L.A. County also petitioned the California Supreme Court to give it the power to kill dogs who have an immediate place to go, spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to do so, even as they claim they do not have the money to restore the adoption hours they cut back. Thankfully, the state’s highest court declined to do so.
Building new shelters is all well and good, but they do not save lives if they are run with staff mired in an old mindset.
(Please note: We were responding to a comment that seemed to conflate the Los Angeles City pound with the Los Angeles County pound, which the user subsequently deleted on his own.)
The current LA Times article is about the pound in the City of Los Angeles. Marcia Mayeda runs the pound system for the County of Los Angeles, which is separate.
But that doesn’t mean your comments are not still spot on, as the Los Angeles County’s Department of Animal Care & Control (LACDACC) has been described as a “death camp.” That’s according to a different investigation by the Los Angeles Times a few years ago that showed LACDACC was also killing more dogs despite declining intakes, “promises to save them,” and building new “state-of-the-art” facilities they claimed would reduce it.
While the investigation showed that staff members violate their own policies when killing dogs, fail to reach out to rescue groups before killing them, and lack sufficient public access hours when working people can visit and adopt animals, the authors missed a crucial reason that explains the alarming increase in killing: staff also choose to kill dogs by preventing non-profit organizations and No Kill shelters from saving them even when they request to do so.
To prevent these killings, rescuers sued Los Angeles County under the Hayden Law, which makes that illegal. In a significant victory for rescuers, the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that under that law, California shelters cannot kill dogs rescuers are willing to save unless those dogs are irremediably suffering or have a documented history of vicious and dangerous behavior. After asking the Court of Appeal to reconsider, which the Court declined to do, L.A. County also petitioned the California Supreme Court to give it the power to kill dogs who have an immediate place to go, spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to do so, even as they claim they do not have the money to restore the adoption hours they cut back. Thankfully, the state’s highest court declined to do so.
Building new shelters is all well and good, but they do not save lives if they are run with staff mired in an old mindset.
(Please note: We were responding to a comment that seemed to conflate the Los Angeles City pound with the Los Angeles County pound, which the user subsequently deleted on his own.)
We need a leader who can enforce no backyard breeding laws and not just excuses for inaction.