In the days leading up to the long July 4 weekend, Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Councilmember Gwen Henry told Random Lengths News that Harbor Animal Care Shelter was running over capacity with animals, likely as a result of the premature lighting of fireworks around the Harbor Area.
The shelter is not supposed to have more than 80 dogs, but after the long weekend, the shelter’s animal population doubled.
The animal shelter is in need of help from fosters and volunteers. Henry said the animal shelter urges pet owners to give their pets a safe place to hide and to keep them busy inside their homes. However, these animal shelters face a problem; there’s not enough people who want to adopt animals. By there being too many animals, it can lead to an emergency. If you are interested in helping these animals, on Harbor Animal Care Shelter’s website there is an online foster application.
“The animal shelters are in a constant state of being understaffed,” said Henry. “Due to there being so many animals in the shelters, there aren’t enough staff members to cover all of the animals. The staff members are continuously in a state of exhaustion, and they’re even working overtime.
“Another problem is that volunteers can’t work with aggressive dogs. Only registered, trained staff workers are allowed to watch over the aggressive dogs. The animal shelters are in need of more staff to at least maintain these animals,” Henry said.
On June 1, Mayor Karen Bass scheduled Staycee Dains as new and permanent general manager of the Los Angeles Animal Services; she began her position on July 3. Mayor Karen Bass took the initiative to increase the Department of Animal Services’ budget by 18%.
Staycee Dains has worked in the department of animal welfare for about 25 years. Staycee’s focal point as general manager is to center her attention on hiring more staff and speaking on the requirements of the city’s six shelters.
There have been many lawsuits of dogs biting people this past year. The National Library of Medicine reports more than 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year in the United States. Approximately 30 to 50 people are killed by dogs every year. Just last year, 46 people were killed.
The Best Friends Animal Society has always worked with Los Angeles Animal services. According to the Best Friends organization website, the nonprofit that Best Friends created, the No Kill Los Angeles Coalition, went from a 56% save rate in 2012 to a 90% save rate in 2020. Best Friends’ website says that partnership is the most important solution to saving more pet lives. Best friends created NKLA to achieve the goal of how to work together to make communities no kill.