A senior Los Angeles metropolis worker was badly mauled by a canine Friday at a shelter in San Pedro, an incident that follows rising concern about overcrowded and unhealthy circumstances for canine on the metropolis’s animal shelters.
Leslie Corea, a kennel supervisor at Harbor Animal Shelter, instructed The Occasions on Saturday that she was getting a canine out of its kennel to point out to a rescue group when it “flipped out” and attacked her leg.
Corea mentioned she was present process surgical procedure at Harbor UCLA-Medical Middle.
Megan Ignacio, a spokesperson for L.A. Animal Companies, confirmed that an worker was “severely attacked by a canine, leading to severe accidents.”
“L.A. Animal Companies employees and volunteers are devastated by the accidents to our coworker and buddy. L.A. Animal Companies has already launched an investigation into this incident,” Ignacio mentioned.
Town’s animal shelters are in disaster due to a scarcity of house and an inflow of animals, based on an e mail to the general public from Animal Companies despatched out close to the top of day Friday.
The e-mail didn’t point out the incident involving the staffer, however urged the general public to step as much as undertake and foster canine.
The e-mail mentioned that canine are “struggling bodily and mentally from both their excessively lengthy shelter stays or the difficult circumstances ensuing from overcrowding within the metropolis’s shelters.”
Animal Companies Division Normal Supervisor Staycee Dains wrote within the e mail that “the disaster has put employees, volunteers and animals in hurt’s means and we are going to proceed to prioritize making this method safer for all concerned.”
The division has the capability to “safely and humanely care” for roughly 800 canine at anyone time, based on the e-mail.
However there are greater than 1,500 canine overseen by the division and almost 50 canine enter the shelters every day, the e-mail mentioned.
The poor circumstances are main the division to kill extra canine. Animal Companies euthanized 102 canine in April, a 44% enhance in contrast with the identical time final yr.
Animal activists urged far more funding for Animal Companies in Mayor Karen Bass’ $12.8-billion funds for the fiscal yr beginning July 1. However the metropolis council stored the extent of spending for the division about the identical as this yr.
Metropolis Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who chairs the committee that abroad animal points, was amongst these who voted final month towards the funds.
On the council assembly, Hernandez expressed frustration that about one-fourth of the funds will go towards the Los Angeles Police Division as an alternative of to different metropolis businesses.
On Saturday, Hernandez mentioned in a press release that she was devastated over the incident involving the worker.
“The state of town’s animal shelters stays utterly unacceptable,” Hernandez mentioned. “It’s pressing that we take fast steps to handle the disaster in our shelters to guard the security and wellbeing of each the animals in our care and their caretakers.”
Bass’ workplace didn’t reply to requests Friday for details about the injured Animal Companies worker.
