The Hidden Crisis in California’s Animal Welfare System | Gary Weitzman

In California, animal shelters are under significant stress. There was a case in Northern California in Humboldt County where a no-kill animal shelter that was getting paid from the state was killing dogs. This case was just investigated recently and there is many more of these cases across the state where animal shelters and rescue places unfortunately are abusing animals. Today we sit down with Dr. Gary Weitzman, who's the leader of the San Diego Humane Society, who's actually an insider investigating some of these cases to tell us what's happening right now and why is this going on in the state. You can't even imagine the pictures. It's inconceivable. 42 Acres is beautiful. Out in Julian, it's just the most pastoral, gorgeous terrain. And so that's why people kept sending them animals. The truth beneath all of that beauty was really just tragic sadness. I'm Siamak Korami. Welcome to California Insider. Gary, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Thank you. It's so good to be here. We want to talk to you about a tragic situation that's happening in California. Some people have seen the headlines, but they don't know what's really happening. There has been a lot of animal abuse, even at the shelters. And you guys are involved with some of these rescues. In fact, can you tell us what you have seen, especially the Julian one? You guys, it's a big one, right? The recent one we had, starting in May in Julian, was a bit of a surprise. We first got called a few weeks before asking if we could potentially just take a few cats. And of course, you have to ask clarifying questions about what does a few cats mean? And a few cats could be 30, it could be 50, it could be 100. But in this case, it was, well, there may be 500 cats. So that certainly causes a little bit of a pause. And let's talk about what's the condition of the cats and what's going on. But we're there to help. San Diego Humane takes care of 14 cities in San Diego County. But we also have a cadre of officers, a lot of them, 50 or more officers, who are often certified as humane officers, which means that we can work anywhere in the state to investigate or intervene if an animal is being harmed or a person is being harmed by an animal. So it gives us kind of the pass to go anywhere in the state if we need to. And we've done that in the past, through fires around the state, when other organizations call us. But the one in Julian was one that was not necessarily in our jurisdiction, but we could go in there. When we heard about it, we thought, maybe, OK, we'll provide some relief to some cats. And maybe there's 500. Did they call you? They did not call. An attorney called from Northern California, from the Bay Area, that we work with a lot, and we dearly love him. And he said, listen, can you help out this group? Not the group themselves, but people that were trying to rescue the animals. And so we needed to hear more. But it started out with maybe 300 to 500 cats that would then be transported, transferred to another organization or organizations, technically, because there'd be so many cats. So it started out that way. But then we found out that this is a place that has been under investigation for years. And it was not our jurisdiction. So we hadn't been doing the investigation. Our colleagues in the county were. And there was not an easy way to get in there to find out what was really happening. Turned out to be far more. This was Pandora's box opening wide and animal after animal after animal, horses, livestock, dogs, cats, birds. Everything that you can imagine were in this sanctuary turned out to be Villa Chardonnay in Julian. And we have resources at San Diego Humane. So we took the lead on it with the county's permission. County was a great partner to us. And we got in there just a week later. And it's interesting. The first day in, you can't just like break down the door anywhere. There's people have Fourth Amendment rights, and we want them to. You have to have cause. You have to have a judge signing a warrant. And you have to really, really have inviolable proof that you have a right to go in there. So we got permission. We did not have a search warrant then, but we got permission from the owner of this rescue, this sanctuary to take a look. And since it was scheduled, things were far different than they had turned out to be three days later. So cats weren't in a great shape, in great condition, but there was no overt sign of harm or debilitation. Let's say just crowding. You know, crowding is terrible with animals, but it wasn't what we saw three days later, which was just one of the worst things that I have ever seen. And yet I've seen some that are worse. It just was horrifying in its number. There were easily 500 cats in 500 square feet of space, maybe. You can't even imagine the smell going in there. It just, you couldn't breathe. Your eyes would start to tear from the ammonia smell, the waste. There were cats that were literally living in the space between a garage door being open against the ceiling and the ceiling. And then the floor was just covered, just covered with cats. And that was just the cats. Then it was other animals that were in just absolutely horrific shape. There were horses that were down. Down horses, the thing that we worry about the most in equine medicine, a horse that can't move, can't get up. They founder, they get colic, they die. They cannot be lying down constantly. They just, their anatomy won't allow that to happen. And these horses couldn't reach their food. And they were just lying down in stalls. So, and I say all this with still, I hope a lot of compassion and understanding for the humans that found themselves in this situation, because that's where it all starts. It starts with usually people that care about animals. And then something this tragic happens because things have gotten out of hand. Or there's other reasons I'm going to choose, in most cases, we always choose at San Diego Humane to assume the best until there are absolutely criminal violations that we know should have been avoided and could have been avoided. In this case, I don't know what will be found there. It's an active case. I can't say more about that part. But I just think it's people that love animals usually that start get overwhelmed and then really overwhelmed. Then there's financial incentives for continuing to be overwhelmed if you're paid to take more animals in. So what ended up happening was we ended up with a rescue and a right to go in with a judge's order and a warrant to seize over 700 animals, 175 horses, 446 exactly cats, a number of livestock, 30 dogs, birds, roosters. There were, I think, a few wild animals as well, a small number. But it just was just a really sad situation. How did you figure out that they are mistreated? You said the first visit, it was more scheduled. And then after you... Well, it's kind of the way that we ask the public to be our eyes and ears. There's so many of these. I mean, we literally get what we call a mass intake case. Again, for us, that's any animal over five number coming into us from one residence. That's a lot. We call that a mass intake because that is a lot. That means some tragedy has happened to an individual. They've either passed away, gone to prison, gone to the hospital, police intervention, something like that has happened. And so we'll get a household of animals. But usually when we get a large number of animals, we are either trying to work with the individual that owns that house, if it's a private individual or organization, to relieve the suffering on those animals immediately. If they're not, then just to time the number of those animals coming in. In this case, when we went to Villa Chardonnay for the first time, we saw things that really raised an eyebrow. And that's why we knew we were going to have to get a search warrant. And those things are the things that we ask the public to tell us about. If you drive by a home or your neighbor, heaven forbid, you can smell a terrible smell. You see a lot of animals in windows, sometimes outside in the yard. You see animals that don't look like they're in great shape. You see new animals coming in all the time. You find an owner who looks really, really, I'll say, devastatingly harried. They're not doing well. But yet they claim that everything is okay. That should raise an eyebrow in your neighborhood or anywhere you see something like that. And just call your local law enforcement division. Call your local shelter if they, like San Diego Humane, have that responsibility. And we'll at least go there and knock on a door and try to get the beginning of information from people. Problem is that information is so hard to get. And the first time we went to the Julian facility, the animals looked like there were too many. That's a violation right there. Most jurisdictions can have usually more than six dogs. Cats are a little different because nobody really blinks if you happen to have a dozen cats, as long as you're taking care of them. I'm not saying do that. We'd rather people didn't do that. But it's usually the dog numbers that get everybody's alarm. And in this case, there just were too many animals and they weren't in great shape. But the second time, to answer your question, we saw cats that had just horrific coats, tangled, eye issues, a lot of eye disease. And that's not normal. Tumors on the cats. There were some with actually open wounds that weren't being treated and abscesses. Now that is neglect. And neglect is abuse. So that on its own gave us the right to go in there with a judge's warrant to do a search and seizure. And how big are these facilities? Is this a house? Is it a ranch? Anywhere from someone's private home to one of the worst cases we had this year was a really sad case. 500 square foot apartment in a house with multiple houses. And I think there were over 200 dogs. Something like that. Yeah, you can't even imagine the pictures. It's inconceivable that anybody living within three miles of that house would not have known this was happening. The floor was filled with feces and debris. I mean, it became its own floor, like a raised platform. And the dogs were living above it and beside it and inside it. Just absolutely horrible. And that case is just, that kind of a case is really sad. In a case like at Villa Chardonnay, 42 acres. So we actually, yeah, there was a lot of space. There were a lot of horses and livestock. And 42 acres is beautiful. Out in Julian, it's just the most pastoral, gorgeous terrain. And everything looked like it was really utopia. And so that's why people kept sending them animals. Because it looks so beautiful. It looked like it could have been a pamphlet. And the truth beneath all of that beauty, all that serenity, was really just tragic sadness. And that's what people didn't know. Do they get paid to have these animals? How does that part work? What's the incentive for having more and more? Sometimes. The two cases that made such prominent news in California, Villa Chardonnay and the Humboldt County Miranda's Rescue, both of those, there was definitely a pay-to-play kind of situation. Where if you were sending animals, let's just say Villa Chardonnay, there were anything from $5,000 to maybe drop off a dog or a cat, to $60,000 to drop off a horse. And horses do cost a lot to care for. So not unreasonable if you truly were taking care of them. And again, we don't know how this investigation will finally end. And I can't speak to what the motivations were by the founder and the owner. And I feel profound sadness for her and her partner. Because I bet this didn't start off being a criminal endeavor. I think it costs a fortune to take care of horses. So if she was opening up her ranch to having horses, people probably should support her financially. Problem was, if any of those horses were the ones that were down in their stalls, they did not get the care that she was promising them. So that case was, it goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. 500-square-foot apartment to a 42-acre estate that really looks beautiful out in Julian, California. It's everything, all of that and everything in between. Can you tell us about the Miranda one? Because that got a lot of attention. That really did. Incredibly sad. It's hard to even imagine that something like that could go on. This gentleman has been in the animal welfare field for a long time. Probably loves animals too. I don't know what's going to happen there. But we haven't seen a lot of cases where someone would mislead the public to the extent that it seems like, allegedly, that happened. And then bring dogs in and summarily shoot them and bury them in mass graves. That is just something out of a... I don't even think Stephen King, who loves animals, would actually write a story like that. It's really just horrifically tragic that something like that happened. And not only did private individuals bring their dogs there, but so did very reputable shelters and rescues throughout California. None of us in animal welfare ever want to euthanize an animal. We will look for sanctuaries like Best Friends. Wonderful sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. The problem is that the fiction, which is what we all want to believe, that sanctuaries truly exist and there's a place to have an animal go as a last resort. It really is a fiction. It just cannot happen. It costs a fortune. It's not sustainable. Best Friends does a great job and thank heaven for them. But for the rest of us to do something like that, it's just almost impossible. The financial resources alone make it impossible. Never mind the numbers. So in your opinion or your thoughts, how much does it cost to take care of a horse? When a sanctuary like that gets paid $60,000, what does it take? Well, just as a good example of that, just one month of hay for a horse is $2,000 to $3,000. So can you imagine? 178 horses. And we're pretty sure there were more than that, that she had transported some out before we got that search warrant over the months before. The interesting thing about Villa Chardonnay was this is very unusual. This was bankruptcy. So the trustee is the one that called everybody in. The founder and the operator still lived on the premises. So we had to deal with guarding the animals once we had them. The bank owned them at that point. So we had permission to care for them, do medical treatment, take care of hooves, teeth, everything. But the owner, who was unfortunately and understandably not cooperative with us, was living there the whole time that we were doing the rescue. It made it really difficult. I've never, in our humane law enforcement leadership, have never worked in a situation where the defendant was present the entire time. It added a level of complexity that we've never had to do. We had to have security there. We had to be there 24 hours, seven days a week. And our main campus is a good hour and a half, two hours away. So we had to rent places to live. This was really unusual. But it ended up well. All those animals are safe and sound. Some of them still in our care. So if anybody, by the time this airs, is looking for a horse, please let us know. The cats are in great condition. It brought us all together. And I can tell you, I got so much sympathy from the public personally, even though it's not me that does all that work. It's all of the people that I get to work with that are incredible heroes. But everybody said, are you OK? How's San Diego Humane Society doing? Are you guys OK? I feel so bad. Are you all right? We are better than we've ever been. It is the reason we exist. We don't want that to happen. But I'll tell you, we have our daily work, which is enormous. But something like this, where we're really protecting animals, it's wonderful. It's why we exist. What do you think is happening? Because the business model for the shelters are to take in these animals and get them adopted. Why do you think this is happening, that the numbers are going up significantly? That's a really great question. The reason, I think, in cases like these two rescues, these two big cases, and there's another one in L.A., somewhat of the same situation, and another one in Marin, we know there's a whole psychology of hoarding and rescue and a whole complex of behaviors that people do to become saviors. I think it's called a savior complex. And a lot of that can be there for whatever reason, that our brains finally do what they do after we grow up and we have the genetics and the environment that contributes. And sometimes tragedy happens to people that become hoarders, and that's why they do it. Sometimes the opposite, to actually try to save the world or start with animals, save animals. And maybe there is a profound love of animals, and I hope there is, underneath all of this. But it can be somewhat like a scheme if someone is bringing in numbers of animals because they have to keep their organization alive. I'm talking about these rescue groups. Trevor Burrus Financially, they have to be here. Bill Gates Yeah. So if you're gonna bring in horses, you need to bring in some money to take care of those horses. It completely makes sense. That's the opposite model of those of us working in nonprofits and animal shelters, because we bring animals with no financial support to do that, except for from the generosity of our constituents, which thankfully exists, and sometimes government contracts, which pay for some of it. But in these rescue cases, there's not a lot of support. There really isn't. So I certainly understand why they would want people to contribute to the care of their animals. If they're truly gonna take care of those animals, sure, that's totally justified. But when it gets out of hand the way we see it getting out of hand now in so many cases, it's not. And people should step away from it, close down, and ask for help. Villa Chardonnay, if those women had asked us to come and help them, we would have been there in a heartbeat to help them get out of the trouble that they're in, decrease some of the population, place some of the cats, get some of the livestock out of there. We would love that. There's no question. Preventing suffering is our goal. We would prefer that a million times over having to go in and react to suffering that we see. We'd love to do that. In the other cases that have been happening in California, we've got a dozen of them, literally in the last six months. One in LA, same thing. It was a rescue group that actually completely got overwhelmed. And at the very least, you see crowding. And that's terrible. But you also see neglect. And again, neglect is a form of cruelty. Certainly, there are worse forms. But it's a good tip-off that someone needs help. And what we always hope for is that someone will ask for help so that we can go in. The case in Marin in the last six to nine months was really tragic. And I really don't know what would have motivated an individual who was taking government contracts to do animal services for them, and then would keep dogs in cages in the shelters that he was supposedly running. And I know there'll be an investigation there. I don't know where that's going or how that will end. But in that case, it's just simply someone that he clearly got overwhelmed. But there's a financial incentive, unfortunately, to stay overwhelmed. Why are we seeing this more now? Do you think there's more people getting overwhelmed? Or do you think now the news is coming out? Are you seeing... You said we're seeing more and more of them in the last six to... We are. Without being a psychologist or a psychiatrist, I would say that there's a lot of contributing factors. One is every shelter in the United States is overwhelmed right now. Really, almost with no exception. At San Diego Humane, we've been overcapacity for dogs for the 12th straight month. And when I say overcapacity, I'm not saying we have 30% more than we can handle. We have 100 to more than 100% more than we can handle. And we do not euthanize for space or time or resources. We are committed to every single animal that comes in. So we have a lot of dogs. And so the root cause, I think, is just the strife that's going on in the world overall. Economically, housing insecurity, the high cost of veterinary care, of just getting a place that you can afford and then have an animal in. I think a lot of that has become economically untenable for people often to own animals anymore. So that's part of it. I think the other reason, because that may not be the reason that a hoarding situation happens. That may be happening regardless of what's happening in the world. But I have to believe the world's really unsettled. And I think we're seeing a lot of that. I'll tell you, every single day, our main campus, we have five campuses throughout San Diego County. We're a really large organization taking care of 40,000 animals a year. It's a lot. Our campuses are, I won't say overrun because that's histrionic, but it's very theatrical now. There's a lot of strife from the public. Remember COVID, we used to ask people to be polite because we're all working through and living through the same thing. Now you can ask people to be polite. We get people yelling at us. We get people, unfortunately, suffering from mental illness. We've had to double our security at our main campus. We have the police there probably at least once a week. We are seeing it. And then look at the horrific mass shootings that are happening around the country. We're training our staff to hopefully never have that happen. But I'll tell you, I'm worried about that. I'm worried about, I think, humanity is at a breaking point. And we're certainly seeing that in almost every facet. And definitely with animals now too. And maybe some of that is what's causing people to break and just go a little or a lot too far in terms of hoarding and these sanctuaries. These incidents you are having, is it people? Is it unhoused individuals? Is it homeless people? Is it random people coming to you guys? Yes, it is all of that. We happen to be like any major city in the United States. There are a lot of unhoused individuals. And we work with them. We go to safe lots. We send officers there. We do vaccine clinics there. We offer spay neuter. There's so many complex reasons that people are homeless or unhoused. We all know that. But we also happen to have our campuses in areas where people come to get support for their animals. And if you are homeless, having a dog to protect you is incredibly important. I also believe that sometimes people that are in those situations, which makes me cry inside, I know that they're often taking really good care of their animals. Sometimes not like all of us, but sometimes they are. But they come to us for pet food. They come to us for medical care. We have a low cost community clinic that's open six days a week, I think. It'll open longer. And so we are inviting that whole world in and we want that. But we also are getting random people that come in and unfortunately are suffering from mental illness. We get people that have just gotten out of jail because their animals have been seized by the police and we're housing their animals for them because we do that as well. And we get people that are angry and just angry about the world. We see everything. I'll tell you, we have to install panic buttons at our front desks so that our staff has a way to get help when they need it. We have an incredible manager of safety and security and he's always out there and he's an ex-Marine and he's the kindest guy in the world. But I'll tell you, he's trying his hardest to keep us safe. We have a police station that is literally down the street from us. It's not every day, but it's a lot. It's funny, my 90-year-old mother is a volunteer at the shelter and she's there every Sunday. She's incredible. She's a guest guide. She stands in the courtyard and she tells people where to go. We have a very, very large campus on our main campus and you might want to go to the wildlife hospital or the behavior center, the kitten nursery, the shelter medicine center, adoptions, small dogs over here, large dogs over here. She's giving them directions and it's phenomenal. She calls me, she says, you wouldn't believe what I saw today. I mean, either it's someone who doesn't have their clothes on in our lobby or someone else who's yelling or someone over there who is just needing help and the police are here and she's seeing it all and fortunately, nothing surprises her anymore. But still, I do worry about her, but I worry about our staff. I worry about our volunteers, our animals as well. When do you think was the turning point? Is it a few years ago? Is it after COVID? It wasn't like this. It wasn't. I would say just before COVID. I think that's when it really got bad and it hasn't gotten better. It's gotten so much worse. I don't think it was COVID that did this. I don't think that started all of this. I think it's just the cost of living is so high. For people to get out of those horrible situations is so tough now. There's no exit route for people. Seeing the struggle that people go through, it's as heartbreaking as the struggle that animals are going through. Sometimes, the people that you think need the most help, short of doing criminal activity, we want them to have their animals because that's their only lifeline to humanity, to any kind of healing. We don't want to ever, ever have to take those animals away. We want to be able to support them. We'll never close down from having people come in for pet food every single day or medical care or help with their animals. We'll never stop doing that. We just want to keep our staff safe while that's happening. Now, in terms of the facilities that you said, they're bringing these, rescuing these animals, but then they abuse them. How do they get into this? Is there any rules and regulations who can do this type of work? How people get into a situation like that is usually just compounding the pressure of it. I can tell you, we normally hold about 2,000 animals a day at San Diego Humane. That's a lot of animals. I can tell you, with 700 staff, it takes every inch of our energy. So you have 700 staff. And all those five campuses and hospitals and wildlife and everything else, it's an enormous organization, really. And in what we do, we're one of the largest. And we want to be one day, one of the smallest because we're not needed to do that anymore. But it doesn't look like that's imminent. But how people get into it, it's so overwhelming. Have you ever had a puppy? I did have one, but I wasn't very good at it. Nobody is. It's like all those people taking home a baby from the hospital. All of them think that, why did they give me this? I'm not qualified to take care of a baby. None of us are qualified to take care of a puppy or two kittens or whatever else because it's hard. Imagine, you know, multiply that by 10 or 20 for people that are collecting animals for whatever reason. So even if it's 15 to 20 animals, let's just say it's 15 to 20 cats, your whole life is about that. You can't get out of that because you love those cats. And once you have them, it just gets worse and worse and worse. It's a psychological Ponzi scheme for people once they bring in some animals. I know, I would protect my animals with my life. It's in a different situation. I only have two dogs, so I'm not collecting animals, but I love them. And I, yeah, I would never give them up. And the people that start and get into trouble often are just like that. They love them and they just won't give them up. And then it just gets worse and worse. It's, it's really, it's an unfortunate thing that there's almost no way out unless you ask for help. And that does happen, but not enough. Is adoption down? Or is it, do you see any trends on that? Yeah, adoption is way down. Our numbers are actually slightly lower than last year on overall intake. So like I said, we take in 30,000 companion animals a year and another 10 to 12,000 wildlife. And of the companion animals, we're holding them longer. Our goal is to have animals out immediately once they're off of their stray holds. So the state requires, and we want to keep animals for three to five days on a stray hold if they've just been found so someone can reclaim their animal. And then after that point, then we put the animal up for adoption after we take care of it and assess it and do behavior and medical care. But once we get them out, we're hoping that it's within two weeks for a dog. And right now, generally we were usually around three weeks for a dog. And now it's about 60 days minimum, 80 days, 120. We have some dogs we've had for a year or more. And so they're staying with us much longer. So obviously what's going out is not as large as what's coming in. We take in 500 animals a week. It's unbelievable. And if someone asked me before I worked at San Diego Humane, I never would have said that number, but I see it. We see it every day. Every week I get a report that's 12 pages long on what's come in, what's gone out, what every one of our campuses has, pretty much every issue, a lot of data. And I always look at the intake over the outgoing animals. And unfortunately, especially summer, the intake is always higher than the outgoing. So you had asked a question about, does anybody watch over all of this? And that's what we're working on in California right now. We want the state to watch over all of us. Right now, nobody watches over shelters. There's no regulation, even over San Diego Humane. You can just open up one and... You can. Well, hopefully you have to become a 501c3 and there are requirements for that. So you are an official nonprofit, but nobody watches over all of us. And we want that. We're asking for regulation, which is a sentence that probably nobody says too often, but we want it because we want to raise the bar for every animal welfare entity in California. And that means shelters and rescues and sanctuaries and groomers and boarding facilities and dog daycare and trainers. We want to raise all ships. And unless we're all held to the same standard and we can share resources and data and even knowing the number of all of us that exist, we don't really know. If you asked me, I'd have to say, I don't know how many shelters there really are in California. I think there's about 1400, something like that. How many rescues? There's probably 15,000 rescues. And yeah, we don't know for sure. We're working really closely with the California Animal Welfare Association. I'm on the board there. I love it. It's just an association of shelters and rescues can be part and other related animal welfare groups to just bring us together. It's a convener sharing resources, education. If someone calls for help in Stockton, we can answer that call for help in San Diego and say, yeah, let's meet you halfway and bring us your kittens or bring us your puppies or bring us your bully breeds that we have a lot of in San Diego, but we all do. It's a great organization. So we're working with Cal Animals and also with Best Friends and the ASPCA and the Humane World for Animals. Only about 20 don't have a statewide authority governing the behavior of animal welfare. And we're pushing to have the California Department of Food and Agriculture oversee all of us. A lot of people are fed up with the regulations in California and complain about that. Why do you guys want this body? I know it's a paradox, isn't it? I mean, normally I would agree there's a lot of regulation in California. Also, California is incredibly progressive. We lead in progressive everything, really, in California. And I think our animal sheltering, I know San Diego Humane, we set the standard for animal welfare, in my opinion. Anybody else wants to share that, I'd be happy to hear that. But the regulation is so important because right now there are no real guidelines for what a shelter should do. And so at Cal Animals, we're actually working on those guidelines. We have a three-tiered approach for recognizing the resource differences that different organizations can have, but there should always be a baseline. And that baseline is what we're not sure is always being met at every agency in the state. And that goes for non-shelters too, rescues that might have animals in crates, which is unfortunate if that happens, but sometimes it's workable. And what we really want, here's the biggest thing, if this regulation happens, Villa Chardonnay wouldn't happen. And the rescue in Humboldt, Miranda's rescue wouldn't happen. And these other ones that we've been dealing with would not happen because we do respect people's right against search and seizure. Our Fourth Amendment rights are really important. With an overarching entity regulating what we all do, this Bureau could allow an inspection to happen without a search warrant. If that had happened, we could have saved these poor women in Julian from the anguish that they went through. We could have helped. We could have mandated help. We didn't have to wait for cause and a judge to sign a search warrant. We didn't have to go in there with the county sheriff and scare the poor people that were just trying to survive doing what they were doing. And again, I don't know what the motivation was there and how many noble intentions there were, but let's assume that there were. We could just go in. And what this Bureau does is it doesn't negate the need for local enforcement. So San Diego Humane would still have our 14 cities that we are the animal care provider. We're the animal protection provider. We would have the authority to license and inspect all of that. All it would do is give us permission to go and have the conversation. And it's not just sanctuaries and rescues. Daily, we have complaints from the public. Right now, I know our queue coming in is easily 50 to 100, 120, 150 calls a day. It's incredible. And these are complaints about? Yeah. And it might be your neighbor upset or my neighbor upset that my dogs are barking too much, which possibly they are. It could be anything. And so we can, if there's cause, we can go and we can knock on a door, but we can't. We can't insist that someone answer. You know, we can call, but we can't insist that they pick up the phone. We can email. We can contact them. They don't have any obligation to respond to us whatsoever. We go right to the door. We bring two officers, wonderful professional people. We don't look scary. They love animals. We knock on the door. Someone's there and says, what? We tell them who we are and they don't open that door and they don't talk to us. And this might probably won't change the rights of an individual on their own property necessarily, unless they are a licensed entity. But it may help. It may help. Because right now we can respond, but we can't be as effective as we want to be until we get a search warrant. And we don't want to get search warrants for everybody that we got to complain about. Sometimes it's a neighborhood dispute. You know, it's not even an animal issue. Or it could be a small number of animals. It could. It really could. Or it could be my neighbor about my German Shepherd barking because she's very loud. And I'm so sorry, everybody in my neighborhood, that that happens. But I do try to take care of her. But this Bureau wouldn't necessarily help on an individual case like that, but it may help. But it definitely would help on these mass rescues. It definitely would. The other thing that I really love about the California Animal Welfare Association is that we have a very, very, very vibrant listserv. Most of us in California running shelters are on that listserv. If someone needs help with an animal, we can, they can call for help. They can, we can set up a transfer. It's just beautiful. It brings us together. This Bureau would do very much the same thing. So rescue groups needing help from a shelter, shelters needing help from a rescue group. It could be a place where we can convene and bring us all together. And this is all assuming that it works in the way that we are hoping that it will, that is intended. We know that bureaucracy can sometimes break its own back and we don't want it to do that. We don't want it to become an entity that is just an enforcer. We want it to be an educator, a resource provider, a convener, and that's what we're going for. But it really can bring a lot of resources to the state that we desperately need. Dr. Gary Weitzman with San Diego Humane Society. Thank you so much for coming and sharing this with us. Thank you. It was a pleasure to talk to you. Anytime. Tell us what you think about this conversation. Do you think shelters in California should be regulated to some degree? Make sure to tell us in the comments or email us at siamakacaliforniasire.com. We read all of your emails and comments. I'm Siamak Khorrami. This is California Insider. We'll see you next time.