This week, Mayor Garcia released a very selective set of statistics that give the impression that Long Beach Animal Care Services is doing great, while keeping the public in the dark about the reality of what is going on with our shelter animals here in Long Beach.
Mayor Garcia’s press release this week went on and on about increased adoptions and the supposed success of the ‘compassion saves’ model. Here are four things Mayor Garcia won’t tell you about what’s happening to our shelter animals.

1. The truth is that LBACS is entering its third decade of killing healthy and treatable animals. LBACS is still killing 16% of cats and 20% of kittens in the shelter. And it still kills healthy and treatable dogs – dogs that could be safely placed in homes if LBACS had an active foster program or adequate medical and behavioral rehabilitation programs. When other shelters, like Austin’s, are saving 98% of their animals, Mayor Garcia’s self-congratulatory claims about an increase in the save rate to just 88% fall flat. LBACS could have been saving 90-95% of animals five years ago, when Mayor Garcia was first elected and promised to put an adoption program in place at LBACS. Instead, he failed to deliver on his promise, and as of now, nearly 10,000 animals have died needlessly on Mayor Garcia’s watch.

2. Adoptions may be up, but they’re still at a pitifully low level. Mayor Garcia trotted out his usual “adoptions are at an unprecedented level” rhetoric, noting that LBACS did 995 adoptions in 2019. This may sound like a large number until you take into account the fact that Sacramento, with similar population, demographics and median income, did nearly 4800 adoptions just from January to November last year. 995 is only the “highest number of adoptions in a decade” because every other year of the decade was so painfully low. If LBACS had a strong adoption and foster program, LBACS would be well on its way to saving all healthy and treatable animals. But it’s not, and healthy and treatable animals continue to be killed for no valid reason.

3. Mayor Garcia’s much-touted live release rate could actually be much lower. There is no guarantee that LBACS animals released to SpcaLA are finding homes because SpcaLA is openly against No Kill, according to its various websites. SpcaLA took nearly 1200 animals from LBACS last year, and what happened to them? We have no idea. the City has not required transparency from SpcaLA, even though it could require SpcaLA, which profits from basically free rent on taxpayer-owned land worth millions of dollars in El Dorado Park, to post its outcomes and give LBACS access to its records. Animal shelters that have embraced a lifesaving No Kill mission have nothing to hide and publish their outcomes for the public to see. Yet SpcaLA keeps their numbers hidden from the public and from the City. The public is massively subsidizing SpcaLA’s bottom line. They have a right to know what is happening to their shelter animals, and the City does not support that.

4. LBACS still doesn’t have a viable, robust adoption program because the City, and specifically Mayor Garcia, won’t stand up to SpcaLA. It’s no secret that SpcaLA doesn’t want LBACS to do adoptions – they’ve said in the Press that LBACS’ goal should be the best animal control, and it should leave animal care to SpcaLA. This has had a disastrous effect on Long Beach’s shelter animals over the past 20 years. Since 2007 alone, LBACS has killed over 40,000 animals because the City won’t let it have an adoption program to avoid upsetting SpcaLA. The City has done a formidable job of covering this up, and it’s only in recent years that it has become common knowledge, by way of the two audits done over the past two years, that there are problems at LBACS due to the “challenging” involvement LBACS has with SpcaLA. But to date, not one City Council member, nor Mayor Garcia, has spoken honestly about the mess at LBACS that exists because the City has allowed SpcaLA to call the shot at LBACS and hobble its operations.

Mayor Garcia and the City staff, as well as some members of City Council, have been pulling the wool over the eyes of the animal-friendly folks in Long Beach for years now because the City doesn't want to rock the boat with spcaLA. This announcement is, unfortunately, just another attempt to spin the fact that LBACS is still killing healthy and treatable animals when they don't have to.

We're always happy when fewer animals are being killed, but when you know how hard the City has fought and continues to fight against implementing No Kill policies, it's clear that we still have a Mayor, a City Council and a city shelter in Long Beach that are not committed to saving all healthy and treatable animals, and as a result, animals are still dying needlessly. The good news is that people can use their votes to help the animals. We hope you'll do that in the next election.
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We encourage you to share this post to let as many people as possible know about what the actual situation is surrounding shelter animals in Long Beach. Thank you for all who continue to advocate for a No Kill shelter in Long Beach.

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Over the next day or two, we’ll be breaking down our analysis of the City’s presentation so you can see what the “new” approach to sheltering in Long Beach now is.

Part 1. No Independent Adoption Program at LBACS

The first thing to know is that LBACS will not be doing an independent adoption program. This is the first indication that the approach the City has come up with, which they’ve named “Compassion saves” is not No Kill. A complete and comprehensive adoption program is crucial to No Kill; therefore, it is virtually impossible for a municipal city animal shelter to be No Kill without an adoption program.

Second of all, the City’s discussion of No Kill was clearly designed to discredit No Kill once and for all as an approach to sheltering in Long Beach. The entire presentation was an exercise in creating fear among residents, claiming that if the City went No Kill, LBACS would have to become a closed admission shelter that would turn animals away.

This is, of course, a complete falsehood. Sacramento, though not yet No Kill, follows No Kill programs, strives for No Kill and yet is completely open admission. Austin’s No Kill shelter, the most successful in the nation, is absolutely an open admission shelter. In telling this falsehood, the City of Long Beach aligned itself with PETA, a nationally-recognized anti-No Kill organization that kills 72% of animals in their shelter.

Although the City acknowledged that closed admission is not part of No Kill, the theme of “No Kill makes shelters close their doors” was pervasive throughout the entire presentation, and it revealed the true intent of “Compassion saves” – Compassion saves is designed to be a smokescreen to make it appear that LBACS has an orientation similar to No Kill. But it’s clear that LBACS will continue, at this point, to be nothing more than an animal control agency, which is exactly what SpcaLA wants it to be.

The good news is that advocating for No Kill has been enormously successful in decreasing the kill rate at LBACS. When No Kill Long Beach (then Stayin’ Alive) broke the news on the front page of the Press Telegram in 2013 that LBACS was not a No Kill shelter, LBACS had a 53% kill rate. In the six years since then, we’ve seen a 34 percentage point drop in the kill rate -- an unprecedented decrease in killing due uniquely to the fact that we advocated consistently and firmly, and made sure that LBACS’ true status as a shelter that kills was known to the public.

Advocating remains an extraordinarily powerful means of saving lives at the LBACS shelter. We hope you’ll continue to support and advocate for our shelter animals. By continuing to be their voice, we are able to support them and make it difficult for the City to force LBACS to continue killing.

One day, people will look back in history and find it unbelievable that we killed animals relentlessly throughout the 20th and early 21st century in our country’s shelters. We sleep easy knowing that we who support No Kill be on the right side of history when people look back. No Kill is compassionate and effective, and we’ll continue to advocate for No Kill in Long Beach.
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