Is L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich Screwing Over a Little Guy?

By Patrick Range McDonald in City News,crime, politics

Monday, Sep. 14 2009 @ 9:00AM

Ever since his arrival as the new Los Angeles City Attorney this summer, Carmen Trutanich has loved to come across as a man of the people.

L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich

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Trutanich has sparred with the L.A. City Council to the delight of many community activists; he has also personally held a town hall-type forum inside City Council chambers in August that was jammed with ordinary citizens who talked directly to Trutanich, and he applied pressure on a wealthy real estate developer to demolish slum properties in Hollywood after community activist Ziggy Kruse asked for his help.

But now that reputation may be in danger, especially since the City Attorney's Office is going after a homeless man -- the littlest of little guys -- in a way that looks shadier and shadier by the minute.

The homeless man is Naser "Jimmy" Nasralla, whose story was featured in L.A. Weekly in late July. Titled "Jimmy on the Edge of Town," the article examines Jimmy's battle with the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the L.A. City Attorney's Office, who want him to vacate his makeshift home near a stretch of railroad tracks in Northridge.

From all accounts -- from the LAPD to local citizens and businesses -- Jimmy hasn't bothered anyone. But Union Pacific gave him a ticket for trespassing on its private property. The case went to court, with Apraham Atteukenian as the prosecutor from the L.A. City Attorney's Office.

As events unfolded, though, it became questionable if Jimmy was actually living on Union Pacific property. The LAPD, for example, was unsure if the homeless man lives on railroad land, and L.A. City Councilman Greig Smith's office, which represents Northridge, told the Weekly that Jimmy lives on "county property." Longtime real estate expert Mary Cummins, in fact, said that she had no doubt Jimmy resides on county land.

Since two of the three charges against Jimmy involve trespassing on Union Pacific land, the findings were a major blow to the city attorney's case. Incredibly, the private/county property question came as a surprise to Atteukenian, whose boss is Carmen Trutanich.

When Atteukenian was confronted with Cummins' findings during one of Jimmy's court hearings this summer, the prosecutor was caught off guard, said he would make some calls, and asked for a continuance. Atteukenian obviously hadn't done the basic homework of finding out if Jimmy lived on private or county property -- if justice, in fact, was being properly applied to the homeless man's case.

Atteukenian's less than exemplary work as a prosecutor only got worse from there.

At another court hearing on August 3, Atteukenian started to realize the impact of Cummins' and City Councilman Smith's findings. Before the hearing started, the prosecutor approached Jimmy and his friend, Edward Muzika, holding out a business card. With his fingers purposefully obscuring most of the card, Atteukenian used it as proof that he had a contact with the county's Department of Public Works, and said that the unnamed official wanted Jimmy off county land.

Muzika asked for a better look of the card, but Atteukenian refused. The prosecutor pulled a similar stunt at another court hearing this past Friday on September 11. This time, Jimmy, who had been representing himself, went to court with a public defender, Joseph McInnis.

At the hearing, Atteukenian forgot all about Union Pacific railroad and claimed Jimmy lives on the private property of someone else. Atteukenian told Judge David W. Stuart that he "wasn't comfortable" with providing the exact name of the property owner, but assured the judge that the person owned Nordhoff Plaza, a shopping center that Jimmy lives directly behind and home to such corporate chain stores as Best Buy and Bed, Bath and Beyond, and wanted the homeless man to leave the site.

The claim was not only astounding because Atteukenian refused to say who approached him -- the prosecutor must turn over such information to the defense -- but the man who operates Nordhoff Plaza, Pat Murphy, told the Weekly that Jimmy doesn't live on his property.

During the reporting for the "Jimmy on the Edge of Town" feature story, Murphy told theWeekly he looked into whether or not Jimmy lived on his land, with the idea of getting the homeless man away from his shopping center. But Murphy said he found that Jimmy was not living on Nordhoff Plaza property, and couldn't take legal action against the homeless man.

Atteukenian's newest claim, therefore, doesn't seem to add up, and it's just one more example of a prosecutor who appears more interested in putting the screws to a homeless man than getting his facts straight and making sure justice is being properly carried out.

Jimmy's next hearing is September 29. L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich still has time to clean up a mess that's going down on his watch.

Contact Patrick Range McDonald at pmcdonald@laweekly.com.

Tags: Apraham Atteukenian, Carmen Trutanich, Edward Muzika, homless, Jimmy,Joseph McInnis, LA City Attorney's Office, LA Weekly, LAPD, Mary Cummins, Naser Nasralla, Nordhoff Plaza, Pat Murphy, Patrick Range McDonald, Union Pacific

Ramirez of County Vector Lies Again

Joe Ramirez now is claiming cat trapping is due to a Typhus outbreak. I guess they are going to adopt out Typhoid carriers from the Carson shelter as per the trapping notice you put up at Imperial School in Hawthorne.

Which is it Joe? Eleven years ago you wanted to kill the feral cats in Palisades Park in Santa Monica because they COULD carry fles that COULD cause pneumonic plague.

Then a week ago you told others that feral cats could be used by terrorists as a disease vector and you were going to go from park to park trapping and killing them.

And in public meeting after public meeting you have told numerous groups of people that all ferals should be caught and killed.

Were you lying then Joe, or now, or both then and now?

My suspicion is that Hawthorne is a test case for them. They want to see if they can get away with it. If there is little response, two weeks from now there will be another park, another school, and maybe another disease or reason to catch and kill the ferals and housecats caught in the trapping.

Fortunately, I have been receiving many phone calls and emails that the rescue community is coming togther on this and are rapidly mobilizing.

A petition to stop the County has been up on the Internet for only 12 hours and already has about 200 signatures.

www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-mass-cat-killing-in-los-angeles

Flyer for Distribution

Download these flyers for distribution. Use some of these arguments when talking to the Supervisors or the press. Click to enlarge, then download by right clicking, and "save as."

Contact the Media

I have limited media contacts. Many of you out there have more than me. In any event, having lots of people contact lots of media is what we need to stop the County.

This was sent to me. I think this is a good alternative approach, "fiscal sanity."

It appears to me that what needs to be done is an all out indirect attack through the media to discredit Vector Control for using "junk science" to validate their positions. What we need is a reasonable/credible public face such as SCA or HSUS to surface the issue in the media focusing not on the slaughter of innocents but on the squandering of scarce tax payer dollars in a time of extreme fiscal duress. If the issue were surfaced as yet another example of bureaucratic waste and abuse in a time of severe financial stress it would get traction in the media especially if it were equated to jobs or services lost.

MESSAGE:

In a time of extreme financial duress when schools, basic medical care and other county services are being reduced, why is this rogue agency being allowed to squander taxpayer dollars to prevent an esoteric, junk science threat? Every dollar this rogue agency spends on killing stray cats is a dollar stolen away from the every taxpayer in LA County that could go to health care, job creation or education. We are a county in crisis - every dollar counts.

Someone Asked Me What Can We Do?

Email me and I will send you flyers to run off and distribute at adoption events Sundays at Petsmart, Petco, Centenela feed. Distribute to rescues. Let the public know that ferals are never adotpted. The County kill rate for all impounded cats is 82%. edwardmuzika@sbcglobal.net.

I have sent all to various media contacts. I was surprised none have contacted me.

As with Ramirez killing squirrels in Santa Monica in 1998, I suggest any traps left by animals services be made ineffective. Go into the parks where the traps are and close them, take the food away. The cats will be safe for one night. Some of us may want to cut the traps with wire cutters to make them inoperable, but I cannot recommend such illegal actions, although I could understand why they would do it.

People did that in Santa Monica in 1998, liberating about half the poison bait stations. When they killed the squirrels again in 2006, they had to station cops all over Palisades Park to keep people from stealing and destroying the live traps. This tied up a lot of cops, animal service people and brought media. This kind of noise would prevent ferals from being trapped during the day.

If traps are thus made ineffective, Animal Services will be forced to stay with live traps which will cut the number they can place out at any time and the number of hours they will be trapping. Even these trapping sessions can be harassed and noise made to prevent the cats going in. Photograph or video the traps being baited and set and post in Facebook or send to me for posting.

Deliberately put a lot of food in the area for the feral cats while they are under threat.

I was successfully able to prevent many neighbors from trapping a colony in Santa Monica indefinitely by just overfeeding the ferals. They never bothered going into the traps despite being loaded with fried chicken and tuna which was not their normal food. Finally, they and the City of Santa Monica gave up trying to trap them. We won that battle.

Organize resistance. Be as discrete as you want. I tend not to be discrete, but that is me. Feed when no one is there. Do it the way you are most comfortable.

Right now they are traping at Imperial School at 12495 Isis Avenue in Hawthorne, and at Del Aire County Park. I'd go tonight and tomorrow, Feed the ferals. Watch this blog for other places they are trapping. I will set up a coordinating blog that anyone can post info about what is happening where if a few people are interested.

The other way is to get a court order to stop them. I have no idea how to do this. They have provided no justification for it, and they will lie to the media when questioned. I am trying to get science experts to call Fielding and the media.

CALL THE SUPERVISORS AND PROTEST! Already many have told me they are going to call Ramirez and complain. But he sort of likes telling people that the killing is necessary and they will do it no matter what you think.

EXTERMINATION UNDER WAY!

HELP!!

Los Angeles County is rounding up and killing feral and stray cats in unincorporated areas as a defense against “terrorist attack.” Next they will move on to LA Cities, as in the past, such as Santa Monica and LA

I have dealt with Mr. Ramirez in the past with his kill-oriented psychopathological thinking, numerous times, as well as other members of County Vector Control. They are insistent on killing as their primary solution to all threats of vector borne diseases. They have repeatedly successfully demanded that the ground squirrels in Palisades Park in Santa Monica be killed every three years or so despite massive opposition by the public and by the city of Santa Monica. They do this all over the county, including incorporated cities within the County, such as Santa Monica or Los Angeles.

Joe and his boss Gail Van Gordon are kill crazy and feel they are on a mission from God to cleanse the world or urban wildlife and feral cats when there is, in their minds, even the slightest potential for disease spread to humans. Ramirez bragged to me that the reason there has been no human plague in Los Angeles County is because they so thoroughly kill ground squirrels throughout the County. They don't even pretend to present reasonable arguments to support the medical/scientific necessity of their killing. Ramirez told me in the past he wanted to kill feral cats because they can spread pneumonic vs. bubonic plague. Vector has been looking for an excuse to kill ferals, now its terrorists!

Trapping has already begun at DEL AIRE COUNTY PARK where a notice has been posted, that cats will be trapped and taken to the Carson shelter where they will be “adopted” out. Next in line for trapping is PECK PARK and THE HARBOR UCLA MEDICAL CENTER. That they will adopt them is a complete lie. Feral cats are not adoptable. The County as well as LA City kills them after a 3 day hold. In fact, LA County has a kill rate of almost 80% for all cats impounded, whether feral, tame or kittens.

It will be tough to stop them. They insulate themselves from scientific evidence and medical logic, and they are backed by Dr. Fielding, head of County Health.

The email I received:

The L. A. County Public Health, spearheaded by Joe Ramirez, Environmental Health Specialist, phone (626) 430-5468, has contracted the L. A. County Carson Animal Shelter to trap and euthanize all feral and stray cats within the park area and wherever there is ‘human interaction’. I spoke with him on two occasions trying to negotiate allowing rescue groups to handle a relocation and adoption effort.

But he is against relocation of any sort unless in a cat sanctuary or adoption. He feels that feral/stray cats have become a National Security problem because of the ‘potential’ of spreading deadly diseases, plagues, and biohazards. His mission is to go from park to park or wherever there are strays and ferals and euthanize them. He told me that Carson said they would euthanize the cats right away, but try and get them adopted. So, either he was lying to me or they were lying to him. Either way, it’s a death sentence for all the feral and stray cats in L.A. County and then maybe elsewhere.

Input with regard to scientific data to the contrary, MAY help, but probably not. They have shown over and over that they base their decisions on their “37 years of combined experience” rather than any scientific evidence presented to them, and Dr. Fielding backs them 100%. He ought to know better.

Phone Numbers of People to Call:

MOST IMPORTANT: Jonathan Fielding: Head of County Health,

jfielding@ladhs.org, jfieldin@ucla.edu; Phone: County Health: Direct Line-(213) 240-8117; UCLA: (310) 206-1141

Joe Ramirez, (626) 430-5468—In Charge of Cat Killing

Ramirez’s Boss: Gail Vangordon: gvangordon@ladhs.org

Phone (626) 430-5450. She considers scientific evidence from outsiders laughable.

The actual rounding up and killing would be done by County Animal Services, headed by Marcia Mayeda.

IMPORTANT: Marcia Mayeda: Phone (562) 728-4882; She does the killing. mmayeda@animalcare.lacounty.gov

MOST IMPORTANT: The Supervisors: These are the decision makers:

Gloria Molina: Phone (213) 974-4111

Zev Yaroslavsky: Phone (213) 974-3333

Michael Antonovich: Phone: (213) 974-5555

Mark Ridley-Thomas: Phone (213) 974-2222

Don Knabe: Phone: 213-974-4444

COUNTY HAS STARTED!

Click photos to enlarge

Trapping of feral cats has begun at DEL AIRE COUNTY PARK where a notice has been posted, that cats will be trapped and taken to the Carson shelter where they will be “adopted” out. Next in line for trapping is PECK PARK and THE HARBOR UCLA MEDICAL CENTER. Protests should be director to Dr. Fielding and the County Supervisors. That info is in my next post. Call Joe though and tell him how much we appreciate his lies about a national security risk and that the cats will be adopted.

The chart below shows that County killed 78% of all impounded cats, feral, friendly and kittens in 2006, with another 3-4% dying in the shelter (other). A feral cat has no chance at all. So Ramirez lies so no one will complain.

Notice that in 2006, 78% were killed at County and another 3-4% died in the shelter or were "lost." Of 35,817 cats impounded, only 5,508 wre adopted, or 15%. A feral cat has a 0% chance of being adopted.

No Kill in Europe--It can be done

In the US we consider No-Kill a distant goal, while in several European countries dogs and cats are not killed in public or private shelters. That is, No-Kill is a fact. However, I still have to research how they do it and whether "overpopulation" is not a problem there or how they deal with it. I got this email from an Italian academic whose article I read about successful TNR efforts in Rome led me to write her. I asked about kill rates in Rome, Italy and the rest of Europe. This is her response: From: Eugenia Natoli Subject: Cats of Rome To: "Edward Muzika" Date: Thursday, September 10, 2009, 12:40 PM Dear Dr. Muzika, I am sorry to know that there is such a high kill rate in many parts of U.S.A. It is funny that, in Italy, most of us are convinced that domestic dogs and cats are never killed abroad. Actually, the no-kill policy is enforced by law in all Italy, i.e. in Italy is forbidden to kill domestic cats and dogs, unless they are uncurable or dangerous. The public opinion is so strong that dogs are euthanised very rarely, even when they are clearly highly dangerous and they should be. In Europe there are only Austria and some regions of Spain where the no-kill policy is enforced by law, like in Italy. Unfortunately, I have no data on the kill rate in other European countries. My field is behaviour, so I have published mainly on it. I enclose a list of my publications. Let me know if you are interested in some of them, and I will send you them. Best regards Eugenia -- Eugenia Natoli Azienda USL Roma D Dipartimento Sanità Pubblica Veterinaria Ospedale Veterinario Via della Magliana, 856 00148 Roma Italia tel. +39 06 56487641 fax. +39 06 56487647 e-mail: enatoli@tiscali.it --

Study Finds Vast Majority of Pet Cats Sterilized

Eighty percent of cats in U.S. households are neutered, according to a new, nationally representative study conducted by Alley Cat Allies and published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Association, a leading peer-reviewed scientific journal. The study, “Population characteristics and neuter status of cats living in households in the United States,” found that family income was the single strongest predictor of whether pet cats living in households are neutered. Over 90% of cats in households earning $35,000 or more per year were neutered, compared to 51% of cats in households earning less than $35,000. These neuter rates are a cause for optimism: they indicate that neutering is an accepted, established practice among the large majority of Americans with pet cats. As a result, our nation’s pet cats are living healthier lives. Despite the disparity based on household income, it bears reemphasizing that the majority of pet cats living in households across all income levels are neutered. The study was based on data collected by Harris Interactive for Alley Cat Allies and then analyzed by Alley Cat Allies using a rigorous statistical approach, and is the first nationally representative study to document that household income is positively associated with a cat’s neuter status. Increasing Neuter Rates for Cats: Next Stop Stray and Feral Cats When looking at the neuter rates of cats in U.S. households, it is important to remember that pet cats represent only a part of the entire U.S. cat population. Scientists estimate that there may be as many stray and feral cats in the United States as there are cats living in people’s homes. In contrast to the high neuter rate of pet cats, the most comprehensive research to date indicates that less than 3% of stray and feral cats are neutered. The lives of all cats—pet, stray, and feral—are improved through neutering. This important new study underscores the need to recognize that most intact cats are stray and feral cats. And among lower income cat owners who responded to the study, cost was the most common reason cited for not neutering their pets. Expanding the accessibility and affordability of low-cost, high-volume spay and neuter programs is a critical step to increasing the neuter rate among both pet cats in lower income households as well as stray and feral cats.

Mayor gearing up for search for GM

My sources tell me the Mayor's Office is gearing up for a search for a new GM. If you know people who are interested, have them get their resume ready. Personally I suggest sending them directly to Jim Bickhart Jim.Bickhart@lacity.org.

The department's head of personnel if Russell Core. Russell.Core@lacity.org

Word About Pasadena Humane Spreading

Pasadena Humane uses fires & animals to con donors

by Pasadena Inhumane ( PasadenaInhumane [at] yahoo.com )
Tuesday Sep 8th, 2009 7:34 PM

Pasadena Humane Society used the recent fires to con people into donating. They kept the cash then threw away new pet carriers, towels, blankets and food donated by the public and other rescue groups. They stated they housed hundreds of evacuated pets when photos show only a few. They stated they took in wildlife injured by the fires when they took in none.

pasadenathrowsawaydonated...

On August 30, 2009 Pasadena Humane Society put out an emergency plea for pet products to help pets evacuated from the Los Angeles Station fire. They requested pet carriers, towels and pet food from the local animal rescue groups.

Mary Temple the supervisor at Pasadena Humane stated "Can any of you rescuers and animal lovers help PHS out by bringing crates to our shelter for the fire victims' animals and rescue some of ours?"

Animal rescue groups responded by donating pet carriers, towels, bedding, food and toys. They also went to the shelters and adopted over 30 dogs to make room for evacuated pets.

Then they sent out a wider plea to the general public. "Wildfires Causing an EMERGENCY Situation at Pasadena Humane Society!!! EMERGENCY EMERGENCY EMERGENCY!!! URGENT URGENT URGENT - shelter completely out of space! 70+ dogs alone taken in last night due to fires." They again asked for pet carriers, towels, bedding, food and money. They added a link to their donation page begging for money saying they could not afford to hold these evacuated pets. All of their supporters were posting the donation link on everyone's Facebook page and on craigslist.com.

Pasadena went on to request help with "wildlife injured from the fires." They stated "the Pasadena Humane Society is the only licensed wildlife center in the 30 mile radius of the wildfires. They are rapidly taking in displaced & injured wild animals, in addition to domestic animals & livestock."

There are actually quite a few licensed wildlife rehabilitators near the wildfire ares. One such local licensed wildlife rehabilitation organization heard their plea and instantly offered to take all wildlife from Pasadena Humane. Pasadena accepted their offer.

When the rehabilitator arrived at the shelter she was told that there were only 12 baby squirrels which arrived before the fires began. They said that was the only wildlife in the shelter. There were no "displaced & injured wild animals." The rehabilitator offered to take the baby squirrels in order to make room for pets evacuated because of the fires. She also offered to take any future wildlife that arrived at the shelter. She and her volunteers called daily and no wildlife injured from the fires ended up in the shelter.

While the rehabilitator was at the shelter she took photos of their evacuation area. The goal was to show that Pasadena had a huge almost empty banquet hall ready to take animals if needed. There were approximately ten dogs in the evac area even though the shelter said they received 70 evac dogs just that morning.

As the rehabilitator was leaving the shelter around 2:00 p.m. she passed by the dumpster in the alley. Inside and around the dumpster were pet carriers (see photo). Some were new with price tags still attached. There were bags of clean folded towels, blankets, pet toys and food. She asked two employees if this was indeed trash and if she could have it. They said yes. She filled her car full of new and almost new pet carriers. As she left she took a photo so she could tell other rescuers about all of these free pet carriers.

When she got home she noticed that three new pet carriers had the freshly printed name of a local dog rescue group. She decided to call the dog rescue group to see if they had other carriers they didn't want. The dog rescue group stated that they heard the plea earlier that day and had dropped off those new carriers to Pasadena to help out. They were very upset that their donation ended up thrown in the trash.

The rehabilitator returned the three crates to the dog rescue group. The dog rescue group contacted Pasadena Humane. Pasadena replied that they only threw away "rusted, broken" carriers. The dog rescue group then promised never to help Pasadena Humane ever again if they were throwing new carriers into the trash and lying about it.

The rehabilitator posted the photos of the trash and evac areas to her Facebook page. The caption on the photos stated that there were free pet carriers in the dumpster. It also stated that Pasadena was ready to accept evac animals if anyone needed a place for their pets. They had tons of room.

Most commenters were very upset that Pasadena begged for crates only to throw them in the trash, same with towels, bedding, food and toys. Fortunately other rescue groups went and took all the crates out of the trash. Some complained to Pasadena about the donations being trashed.

Pasadena responded on Facebook stating that the crates in the trash were "rusted," "broken" and "full of scorpions, ick!" The rehabilitator responded with larger photos of the crates stating that they were new, almost new or merely had "some dirt on the underside of the bottom of the carriers." They were clean crates with "no scorpions." She stated "what do they do when the crates they're using get dirty, just throw those out too?"

Since then other information about the practices of Pasadena Humane have come to light. Pasadena Humane states on their website that they place 94.3% of cats. Their statistics in their annual report show that they actually only place 35%. They euthanize 59% of all cats. They arrive at these numbers by deeming most animals as "unadoptable" then they didn't count them. They actually just deem any animal not adopted as "unadoptable."

They did the same funny math with dogs. They claimed they placed 97.6% of all dogs when they actually placed only 46%. This is much worse than even Los Angeles City shelters which place 74% of dogs. One would think a smaller shelter with more volunteers and money would be able to do better than the embattled Los Angeles shelter system.

One person commented on the Facebook thread that they took their euthanasia class at Pasadena. They had to kill three dogs for their final. These dogs were deemed "unadoptable." One was very frightened, the next slightly frightened, the last was a super sweet loving dog that was wagging her tail and kissing everyone up until the second before she was killed. The first two were deemed potential biters, the third was "food aggressive." Right before the students killed the last dog they gave her a muffin, then snatched it away. The dog was not food aggressive at all. In fact the shelter stated that this dog was offered up for adoption in the shelter for 30 days. She was merely deemed "unadoptable" because she was not adopted within 30 days.

Pasadena stated they are licensed to take in wildlife. In their annual report they state that they took in 1,387 birds. 72% of those birds died or were euthanized, 28% were transfered to licensed rehabilitators or released. They took in 964 mammals. 57% of those mammals died or were euthanized, 43% were transfered to licensed rehabilitators or released. 65% of all wildlife brought to the shelter died or was euthanized. Pasadena's statistics for died/euthanized for wildlife is much worse than the state average for rehabilitators. It's also interesting to note that they transfer most of the animals to other rehabbers who then care for them to release, another numbers game. They may take in 2,377 wild animals a year but they only cared for a few of them themselves.

For years people have stated that Pasadena fudges the numbers, deceives donors, and treats the public poorly. There are pages and pages of poor reviews by customers online. I guess it takes just one act to make people take a closer look at their numbers and actual practices. Do your research before you donate to any non-profit organization.

*Spay and neuter your pets. Don't buy a new pet, adopt one from your local shelter or rescue groups. If you find ill, injured or orphaned wildlife, contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator.

Smith Not Running For Reelection in 2011

Greig Smith announced he is not running for reelection in the West Valley District 12. His very unhelpful assistant Englander announced he will run. Englander is another weekend warrior reserve, law and order, hate Jimmy on the bridge type of person. Anti feral cat I suppose too, but I'll check that.

Let's get Kathy Riordan to run and be the West Valley's Councilmember.

Kathy, run will you?

Recent Foster

Got her yesterday. One of four we are trying to rescue from a drainage ditch that is scheduled to be paved over in Van Nuys. About 6 weeks old. How is that for a relaxed feral kitten less than 3 days out of a ditch?

The other three are harder to get to because we need access and the contractor won't let people in to trap. This one was grabbed through a fence. There is one more adorable Calico, and two pale orange brothers.

Marsha Hall wrote:

The Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara , CA this year caused these two to take shelter together. The fawn is about 3 days old and the bobcat about 3 weeks. They immediately bonded and snuggled together under a desk in the Santa Barbara County Dispatch Office for several hours.

Animal Planet is reporting the bobcat kitten was rescued near Arnold Schwarzenegger's ranch, where it was dehydrated and near death. They rescued the fawn during the wildfire. Although wild animals, especially of separate species, are never placed together due to regulations, in this emergency situation, they had no choice.

During the mayhem of the fire, they were forced to put animals anywhere they could, since they had run out of crates large enough for the fawn. The kitten ran to the fawn, and it was instant bonding.

Pasadena Humane Claims 94.38% Placement For Cats Even Though it killed 59%

Pasadena Humane is a typical "lying" shelter.

PH claims a “Placement rate for cats” of 94.38% on page 5 of their 2008 report. http://www.pasadenahumane.org/site/DocServer/PHS_Annual_2008.pdf?docID=361

This is an astounding claim since they took in 3,741 cats and killed 2,194 of them! Only 1,547 cats left the shelter alive! They killed 58.6% of all cats that came in yet astoundingly claim a placement rate for cats of over 94%.

Their kill figures are a little worse than LA City but not quite as bad as County where about 80% are killed.

So how do they get their 94.38% placement rate figure? They claim that of the 3,741 cats impounded, only 1,639 were “placeable," and of these 1,639, only 92 were killed for lack of space.

“In 2008, PHS cared for 1,639 placeable cats. Of these, 1,326 cats were adopted, 205 went to rescue organizations, and 16 were transferred to other shelters. 92 cats were euthanized for space reasons, 7 more than in 2007. Our placement rate for cats is 94.38%, down 0.22 % from 2007.”

They get their “fantastic” placement rate by defining the population of cats they adopted, transferred or had rescued as the placeable ones. It is purely a name game with them. Marcia Mayeda used to do the same, claiming an almost 89% adoption rate even though County killed 82% of the cats impounded.

They just defined the group of placeable or adoptable cats as being slightly greater than the total number of cats they actually adopted. Actually, if you are a really good liar, you can generate numbers where you saved or placed more animals than were placeable. You could even create a 110% placement figure while still killing more than half the cats brought in.

Compare Pasadena’s stats with Reno for example, where the live save rate for cats is over 80%, not 41% as in Pasadena.

The case with dogs is only a tiny bit better. Of 4,288 impounded dogs, 1974 made it out alive in 2008 according to their report. That is a live save rate of 46%. Yet, they claimed a 97.6% placement rate for dogs, because they only considered 2,024 of the nearly 4,300 dogs placeable.

This is far, far worse than Los Angeles Animal Services with a live save rate of 74% compared to Pasadena's 46%. I think even LA County has a better than 46% live save rate. Reno has a live save rate for dogs of over 90% and they handle more than twice as many cats and dogs as Pasadena.

There is one very unusual statistic. Pasadena claims 3,741 "live animal" impounds for cats out of a total cat impound figure of 4,760. They list 1,019 deceased cats also impounded. This is extrememly high compared to Los Angeles. Los angeles, for the same period had only 556 DOA cats, and yet LA impounded almost five times as many cats. That is, dead cats impounded was only 2% of LA's impounds, but was 21% of Pasadena's. It could be that Pasadena counts every dead cat impounded while LA doesn't, which is troubling if true, because in LA, once again we are missing an important piece of information regarding animals in the city.

Given the photos of the thrown away items, the lack of official response to the claims of not having over 300 evacuated animals, along with this blatant slanting of statistics beyond recognition, and you have an organization I certainly would not trust regarding anything.