Los Angeles City Council considers temporary moratorium on dog breeding permits

LOS ANGELES (CNS) — The Los Angeles Metropolis Council Tuesday will think about a brief moratorium on canine breeding permits, which officers say is an try to deal with overpopulation on the six city-run animal shelters.

To be able to implement the non permanent moratorium, the Metropolis Council might want to approve an ordinance. Final week, the three-member Neighborhoods and Neighborhood Enrichment Committee handed the ordinance in a 2-0 vote on consent, that means no prior dialogue was held on the matter.

Councilman John Lee, who sits on the committee, was absent in the course of the vote.

Based on metropolis paperwork, the moratorium can be lifted as soon as shelters have been at or beneath 75% capability for 3 consecutive months, and may very well be routinely reinstated if shelter capability rises above 75%.

The shelters are “experiencing a dire disaster as a result of overcrowding of canines,” which is in keeping with tendencies in private and non-private animal shelters nationwide, officers beforehand mentioned.

The town has seen steadily growing numbers of canines, cats and rabbits at its six shelters for the previous few years, and commissioners and plenty of animal advocates from the non-public sector have lobbied for a halt to breeding and extra sturdy spay-and-neuter efforts as the 2 most vital steps towards tackling the issue.

“The present canine inhabitants within the division’s animal shelters has exceeded kennel capability for greater than a 12 months, necessitating the doubling and tripling of canines in single kennels and the location of canines in non permanent hallway crates for as much as months at a time, whereas on the identical time, growing pressure on division employees,” metropolis paperwork learn.

Staycee Dains, head of town’s Animal Division of Animal Providers, had beforehand described the moratorium as a approach to “sign to the neighborhood clearly that our shelters usually are not in any place to soak up yet another animal.”

In 2023, Dains reported town had issued about 1,200 breeding permits, and was on tempo to complete that 12 months with about 1,800.