The Californer - Shaileen Sorenson, LA Actor and Animal Welfare Activist, Launches No-Kill LA Shelters Petition

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Petition cites a 72% rise in LA County shelter euthanasia and calls for permanent no-kill status by 2028.

LOS ANGELES - Californer -- Shaileen Sorenson, a Los Angeles-based actor, animal welfare activist, and cybersecurity professional, has launched a petition calling on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to mandate no-kill status for all county-operated animal shelters by 2028. The petition, hosted on Change.org, comes in response to a sharp rise in shelter euthanasia rates and the animal welfare crisis that followed the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.

According to a KTLA investigation cited in the petition, LA County shelters euthanized 1,244 dogs and 1,517 cats in the first nine months of 2024 alone — a 72% increase in dog euthanasia over the prior year, with county officials describing the situation as "critical." The crisis intensified after the January 2025 fires displaced thousands of animals across the region; nearly 1,000 came through the Pasadena Humane Society alone. Sorenson's petition argues that many of the animals who survived the fires did not survive the shelter system that took them in.

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The petition points to Austin, Texas, which achieved and has maintained no-kill status (defined as saving 90% or more of shelter animals) since 2011 through funded foster networks, transparent public reporting, and community outreach — not increased budget alone. Sorenson is asking the LA County Board of Supervisors to adopt five specific commitments: year-round funded foster network infrastructure, real-time public posting of at-risk animals, countywide low-cost spay and neuter programs, a documented disaster animal response protocol, and monthly public transparency reporting from every county shelter.

Sorenson also wrote about the issue in a Medium essay published July 3, 2026, drawing on her cybersecurity background to frame the shelter system's collapse as a capacity and accountability failure rather than an isolated tragedy: "A support queue that works fine at normal volume and collapses the moment demand spikes. A system with no overflow protocol, no escalation path, no documented contingency — just a steady state that holds until it doesn't."

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"No healthy animal in Los Angeles should die because there was no room," Sorenson said. "No family should lose a pet in a disaster because no one had a plan. The fixes aren't complicated. They're just not in place."

The petition has been signed by dozens of supporters since its launch and names LA County Board of Supervisors members Hilda Solis, Holly Mitchell, and Janice Hahn as decision-makers.

Sign the petition: https://www.change.org/nokillla2028
Read the full essay: https://shaileensorenson.medium.com/animals-survived-the-la-fires-then-the-shelters-killed-them-4b15c85540c2

Source: Shaileen Sorenson

Filed Under: Non-profit

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