Gavin Newsom spent $50 million to end animal euthanasia. So why are more pets being killed?

A room in the back of the San Luis Obispo County Animal Shelter is the last stop for some of the dogs and cats that come to stay at the facility.

Far from the barks and meows and day-to-day bustle of the brand new, brightly lit $20 million building, this room has muted lighting and a quiet, almost reflective atmosphere. There are a few holding cages, where animals receive sedation. On the counter, a bag of treats.

“We’ve got space where staff can sit for a little time and maybe socialize with the animal, give it some treats, a little comfort and quiet friendly time,” said Dr. Eric Anderson, SLO County animal services manager.

Most animals that pass through these doors are too sick to be adopted, or have serious behavioral issues preventing them from being good pets. Some are just unlucky. They are perfectly adoptable but their time is up, and there isn’t enough room for them, either at a shelter or local animal rescue centers.

“It’s a relatively small portion of what we do, but even though it’s a small portion we try to minimize that. We also have tried to make sure that we give it serious significance in terms of how we handle that obligation and that responsibility,” Anderson said.

Across the state, shelters with too many animals and not enough space are resorting to euthanasia. In 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, shelters house 361,000 animals.

These are the animals that California Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to save at a 2020 press conference where he presented that year’s proposed budget, pledging $50 million toward the effort.

“We want to be a no-kill state,” the governor said.

Three years and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars later, California animal shelters are euthanizing more healthy, adoptable dogs and cats than ever.

What went wrong? Animal shelter advocates and “no-kill” proponents disagree.

Shelter supporters said the post-pandemic trend of people surrendering their pets has continued. Fewer veterinary staff are available to provide spay and neuter services and treat illnesses before they become life-threatening. And, as always, there is not enough money to go around, they said.

Nathan Winograd, executive director of the No Kill Advocacy Center, said that shelters, not pet owners, are accountable.

Animal shelters across the state continue to retain a pandemic mindset, he said, which means limited adoption hours and no walk-ins. Those interested in taking an animal home must make an appointment first. He said they have also cut back on other programs, such as adoption outreach and foster care.

Winograd said decreased services means an increase in the number of animals killed.

“Unfortunately in many ways, the situation in California has actually gotten worse,” he said.

Where did the no-kill money go?

The $50 million in “no kill” funds was to be allotted to the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program, to be spent on developing ways to reduce animal euthanasia.

When the pandemic arrived, and $50 million became $5 million, as the governor and Legislature scrambled to cut expenses amid a fears of a deficit. But the next year, Newsom restored the remaining $45 million, and in February 2022, the program, now called California for All Animals, was off and running.

The initiative has spent more than half of the $50 million. That includes $15.5 million in grants to shelters for improvements like larger compartments for animals. More space reduces the risk of disease, improves behavior, and “increases animals’ chances for adoption,” according to a March 2023 UC Davis report.

Another $12.5 million went to in-person visits, training, and outreach that included 35 on-site visits to shelters, varying in length from a few hours to a few days.

“A key component of the site visits is the ability to meet with staff and volunteers working in essential functions such as animal care, veterinary medicine, and field services and incorporate their feedback and needs into future programming,” according to the report.

In addition, the state provides technical assistance to shelters in need, including reviews of cleaning protocols, how to mitigate disease outbreaks, ways to contain or isolate the animal population and best practices for keeping animals healthy.

The remaining $22 million will be parceled out over the next three years — $9.9 million in 2023-24, $9.6 million in 2024-25 and $2.5 million in 2025-26.

How many animals does California kill?

One major issue surrounding California for All Animals is transparency.

The California Department of Public Health used to publish statewide animal euthanasia data, as part of its rabies prevention program. While that data included rabid animals, it also included all other shelter animals that were euthanized. Then, in 2016, the agency stopped. With fewer people bitten by rabid dogs and cats, the state no longer saw value in providing that information, though it still collects the data.

“The role of domestic animals in rabies transmission risk, and the informative value of animal shelter data toward rabies control, has diminished significantly,” the agency said in a statement.

The California for All Animals program, which is part of the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program, is collecting data on the subject, but only from 146 of the estimated 230 shelters in the state.

The program requires participating shelters to submit euthanasia data from five years before the program started (2017 to 2021) and then also through the duration of the program (2022 to 2026).

Allison Cardona, Koret’s state director who oversees the program, said the data collected thus far by the state show that the problem of reducing shelter euthanasia exceeds the scope of California for All Animals, which is a five-year program with limited funding.

Asked for the shelter euthanasia data, Cardona referred The Bee to UC Davis’ public records office. The Bee has filed a request under the California Public Records Act for the data.

“I’ll say this. I think it’s going to take longer. There needs to be significant investment in resources for the community to keep their pets,” Cardona said.

What is known is that in 2019, one in five California shelter animals was euthanized, totaling 124,000 shelter deaths. In 2020, as the pandemic descended, euthanasia rates dropped dramatically, with a record low of 51,000 animals put down, according to the UC Davis report.

But the following year, 2021, data from participating shelters showed that kill rates began to tick up again, with 54,000 animals euthanized, “and initial data suggests these negative trends are accelerating substantially in 2022,” the report said, though it left unclear how many animals were euthanized that year.

Winograd said that the lack of publicly available data means it’s impossible to measure how effective the California for All Animals program can be at the stated goal of reducing animal euthanasia rates.

“It all starts with transparency. That’s the place where we should all agree,” he said.

Is the euthanasia rate ‘just a symptom’ of a larger problem?

California animal shelters are killing more animals, but the reason for that depends on who you talk to.

Cardona said that the California for All Animals program learned early on that shelters lack the veterinary staff and other resources to spay and neuter animals. Even with grants, shelters are struggling to attract veterinary doctors and technicians.

That means more strays and more animals taken to shelters. And thus more cats and dogs put down, she said.

There’s also the issue that intersects with so many other critical problems: not enough housing. Finding a pet-friendly place only compounds the challenge of scarcity. And with the end of the moratorium on evictions, Cardona said, many people with pets are losing their homes.

“With increased economic hardship, people are turning to animal shelters more for help,” she said.

Cardona said shelters have had to become more like resource centers and case workers, helping people on a case-by-case basis to keep their pets and trying and reduce the number of animals placed in the system.

Jill Tucker, head of the California Animal Welfare Association that represents shelters across the Golden State, said that the problem is simply bigger than what $50 million can address.

“I think the investment through the UC Davis team and the state was very timely, but the magnitude of problems we’re facing right now in California and nationally just is overwhelming,” she said.

Is money the problem?

Winograd, an outspoken critic of California’s shelter euthanasia policy, disputed the assertion that more people are surrendering their pets and fewer are getting them spayed and neutered.

He pointed to a national survey of animal shelters showing that just over 61% of animals in shelters were relinquished by their owners in 2022, compared to slightly more than 67% in 2019 — before the pandemic started.

Despite taking in fewer animals, shelters are killing more of them, according to that same survey. In 2022, 10.9% of animals were euthanized. In 2019, it was 10.5%, according to the 2022 Shelter Animals Count national database.

Instead, Winograd said the problem is that animal shelters have refused to reopen their doors in the aftermath of the pandemic.

“It’s become much more difficult to adopt animals and a lot of the programs that they used to have, they no longer do,” he said.

That includes programs to sterilize feral cats, so-called Trap/Neuter/Return (TNR) programs that Winograd said are a cheaper, more effective way to handle stray cats than euthanizing them.

“More money is always welcome and I don’t want to create the impression that the animals don’t need the money,” Winograd said. “But lack of money has not been the primary problem, because lack of money is not why animals in many of these communities are dying.”

Lawmakers fail to address euthanasia problems

California lawmakers on both the left and the right have tried, unsuccessfully, to address the problems.

This year, Assemblyman Alex Lee, D-San Jose, introduced Assembly Bill 332, that would have required CDPH again to share statewide euthanasia data.

Despite support from dozens of animal welfare organizations, and no listed opposition, the Assembly Appropriations Committee quietly killed the bill after it was placed on that committee’s suspense file. The panel never offered a public explanation for why the bill was quashed.

And then there was Bowie’s Law.

Assembly Bill 595 is named for a healthy 15-week-old puppy euthanized by a Los Angeles County shelter despite a rescue group being willing to take him. The bill would have required animal shelters to provide 72 hours online notice that an animal is set to be killed.

AB 595 met opposition from Tucker’s California Animal Welfare Association. She argued in a letter that the measure would mandate additional holding times for animals in already overcrowded and underfunded shelters.

AB 595, too, met its demise in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Essayli later unsuccessfully tried to have the bill brought to the Assembly floor for a vote.

“It is shameful that the committee chose to side with lobbyists and kill Bowie’s Law without transparency, the same way Bowie was killed last year in secret,” Essayli said in a statement.

How do we reduce pet euthanasia?

Solutions are easy to imagine, but harder to come by.

Cardona, of California for All Animals, argued that the state must take an across-the-board approach — making more affordable, pet-friendly housing available, investing in more veterinary services for shelters, and making sure shelters are equipped to handle the animals that they do take in.

Tucker said that shelters need more money, more staff and volunteers and more people willing to foster or adopt an animal. She said we should look at the issue from a broader perspective .

“Why are all these animals in the shelter to begin with?” she said.

For Winograd, a good place to start would be more transparency. How many animals are being euthanized? What exactly is the state money being spent on?

“If the governor is serious, we need sunlight. We need to know where exactly this money is going, why it’s going there,” he said.

Winograd said that California bills itself as one of the most progressive states in the nation, but that when it comes to euthanasia California has more in common with states Newsom would rather not be compared to.

“We are one of a handful of states that are responsible for most of the killing in the United States, second only to Texas,” he said.