Less than a week later on Jan. 14, 2018, No Kill Long Beach *an advocacy group whose stated "ultimate goal is to make Long Beach a No Kill city, as defined by saving all healthy and treatable animals in the city shelter") issued a release it titled: "Live Release Rate Decreases at Long Beach Animal Shelter, Points to Inefficiencies, Not Improvements."

LBREPORT.com publishes salient portions of both releases for our readers' review and for the record.

The City of LB Jan. 8, 2019 release stated in pertinent part:

[City of LB Jan. 8, 2019 release text] The Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine’s Animal Care Services Bureau (ACS) attained a downward trend in euthanasia and impounds in 2018. The Bureau is positioned to achieve even more positive results in 2019 through its progressive programs to support shelter animals and continued improvements in performance measures over the last ten years. Rescue groups including spcaLA, Friends of Long Beach Animals, Stray Cat Alliance, Little Lion Foundation, Helen Sanders Cat PAWS, Fix Long Beach, Pet Food Express, Adopt and Shop and dozens more also helped to support ACS and contribute to these statistics.

"We are proud of Animal Care Services staff, the numerous rescue and animal advocacy organizations, and our volunteers for their hard work and commitment to improving outcomes for shelter animals," said Mayor Robert Garcia. "Several initiatives will support even stronger results in 2019, including the development of a strategic plan for the organization, recommendations from the new Animal Care Visioning Task Force, implementing audit recommendations and increased staffing."

[Scroll down for further.]

Both images from Jan. 8, 2019 City of LB release

On January 14, 2019, No Kill LB, issued a release stating that records it obtained under the CA Public Records Act show that while Long Beach Animal Care Services' Live Release Rate of 79% decreased two percentage points from 2017 and the agency euthanized 69 fewer animals in 2018 (996) than in 2017 (1,065), the agency took in 800 fewer animals in 2018 than in 2017.

No Kill LB also said adoptions decreased from 682 in 2017 to 632 in 2018 (a decline of 7.3%) for the first decrease in three years.

Patricia Turner, Ph.D., Director of No Kill Long Beach commented in the release: "If LBACS is taking in fewer animals, that means less cleaning, less vet care, and less administrative work. With less work needed to maintain the population, they should be euthanizing a smaller percentage of animals. Instead, we're seeing the opposite." Dr. Turner added: "It's not a question of budget; it's a question of antiquated practices and policies at LBACS that serve as bottlenecks to lifesaving."

Regarding the drop in adoptions, Dr> Turner said: "632 adoptions is extremely low for a city the size of Long Beach, when you consider that Sacramento ACS did 5,037 adoptions in 2018" (with a population, demographics and median income comparable to Long Beach, NKLB says.)

Dr. Turner commented: "Mayor Garcia campaigned and won the 2014 election on an animal-welfare ticket, in which he specifically said that he would build a strong adoption program at LBACS. That promise has never been fulfilled."

Sponsor

Sponsor

No Kill Long Beach advocates [Jan. 14 release text] "implementation of the No Kill Equation: responsible, humane, cost-effective policies and programs that will reduce the shelter population and increase adoption rates." The group has placed LBACS' shelter outcomes, including euthanasia rate, adoption rates, and rates of transfer to SpcaLA, on NKLB's website at at this link. "The City of Long Beach does not post the city shelter's outcomes as Sacramento does," NKLB's release said.

Sponsor

Sponsor

Sponsor

Support really independent news in Long Beach. No one in LBREPORT.com's ownership, reporting or editorial decision-making has ties to incumbent Long Beach officials, development interests, advocacy groups or other special interests; or is seeking or receiving benefits of City development-related decisions; or holds a City Hall appointive position; or has contributed sums to political campaigns for Long Beach incumbents or challengers. LBREPORT.com isn't part of an out of town corporate cluster and no one its ownership, editorial or publishing decisionmaking has been part of the governing board of any City government body or other entity on whose policies we report. LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. You can help keep really independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.