Read Our Latest Report: California Shelter And Rescue Data Transparency Gaps

11 hours ago
2 min read

Our latest report examines a troubling contradiction in California’s animal welfare system: some major public shelter systems are taking in roughly 40% fewer animals than before COVID, while communities and rescues continue to report an animal overpopulation and capacity crisis. For example, LA County intake declined approximately 42% from 2018–19 to 2024–25, San Jose declined 40%, and SEAACA declined nearly 60% from 2018 to 2024.

At the same time, multiple shelters have implemented managed intake, restricted intake, appointment systems, or periods when intake is effectively frozen because facilities are at or beyond capacity. Animals that are refused, waitlisted, redirected to rescues, or retained by members of the public often never appear in official shelter intake statistics. This means declining shelter intake cannot automatically be interpreted as declining community need.

Our report also analyzes three major shelter-data systems—Shelter Animals Count, Best Friends Animal Society, and the UC Davis California reporting initiative. We found substantial differences in participating organizations, incomplete participation, missing major high-intake systems, inconsistent metrics, and limited historical visibility. Some datasets retain only about five years of publicly visible information, while others provide even shorter windows, making it difficult to compare today's performance with conditions 10 years ago, when shelter intake and operations looked very different.

These limitations make reliable long-term trend analysis extremely difficult. A reduction in shelter intake resulting from animals being prevented from entering the system can appear to be an achievement, while the unmet need outside shelter doors remains largely unmeasured.

We raise these concerns not to criticize organizations working to collect voluntary data, but to identify gaps that California needs to correct. Adequate, standardized, comprehensive and historically preserved data are fundamental to fair evaluation and sound public policy. The lack of a coherent statewide picture may itself be one reason the severity and changing nature of California's animal welfare crisis have been so difficult to define—and therefore so difficult to address legislatively.

Please read our latest report below. We hope it contributes to a broader discussion about what California should actually be measuring, what may currently be missing, and what information legislators need to make informed decisions.