Animal Services Chief: Goal to ‘save as many pets’ lives as possible’
City News Service
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KESQ) – Riverside County is continuing to place an emphasis on preserving the lives of pets impounded at the county’s four animal shelters, Department of Animal Services Director Mary Martin said today, renewing the agency’s appeal for residents to consider adopting or fostering dogs and cats going into the holidays.
“Progress has been made toward the `no kill’ goal,” Martin told the county Board of Supervisors during its meeting Tuesday. “We’re doing everything in our power to find homes for these animals … trying to save as many pets’ lives as possible.”
Martin was present for a 5-0 board vote approving the department’s request for a five-year contract, valued at an aggregate $1.5 million, with Downey-based TLC Animal Removal Services for the disposal of pets who either die in the shelters, or are recovered dead by animal control officers while on patrol.
The carcasses are taken to landfills for burial.
One speaker, a Nuevo woman, appeared before the board to suggest the Department of Animal Services was engaged in animal “rendering,” or the use of some canines’ and felines’ remains for the production of animal feed products. But Martin said there was no such policy on the books.
“All (dead) animals are removed from the shelters and buried in landfills,” she told the board.
The agency director acknowledged that not all impounded pets “can be seen by the public,” but she denied there was anything sinister about the practice.
“Some of them are housed separately for quarantine or due to cruelty investigations,” Martin said.
She used her time at the podium to call on residents this holiday season to consider participating in foster programs, which involve taking home dog or cat for short- or long-term periods to free up shelters’ space, as well as to formally adopt lost, abandoned or abused animals permanently.
“You can’t help but fall in love with them (when visiting the shelters),” Martin said.
In May, the board approved the “no kill” policy, resolving that the county will make it an objective to preserve the lives of a minimum of 90% of all cats and dogs impounded at the county’s four shelters.
The policy entails greater emphasis on free or low-cost spay and neuter clinics, enhanced “return-to-owner” programs that unite lost pets with their loved ones, adoption campaigns with full fee waivers and expedited “trap-neuter-return-to-field” programs that were inaugurated in March 2024.
The no-kill effort dovetails with a reformation initiated last year by the board, when one organization alleged that the county had the highest pet “kill rate” in the nation.
In September 2024, the board hired Austin, Texas-based Outcomes for Pets LLC Principal Adviser Kristen Hassen to rectify problems within the agency, and last February the supervisors approved the Executive Office’s selection of Martin to head the department following a nationwide executive recruitment drive. She took the helm at the end of March.
Information about shelters’ hours of operation and pet fostering and adoption programs can be found at rcdas.org/.