Iggy’s Not the Only Fuzzy Part of Ellen’s Pet Adoption Tale/Boks Numbers Fuzzy, Too

Carla Hall, who’s got the heartwarming pet beat at the LA Times, gets some inside info on the Ellen DeGeneres pet adoption story (Iggy, the bone of contention is shown above). But she also gets the same old kibbles ‘n bits from Ed Boks:

Ed Boks, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services, which runs six city shelters, said private rescue groups help lower the city’s euthanasia rate.

“Our 125 partners help us place about 6,000 to 7,000 animals a year,” he said. “And that’s compared to the 15,000 we adopt out ourselves.”

FBLA asked animal advocate Daniel Guss about this statement, and he replied:

If this was true, and 21,000–22,000 animals were being adopted a year, the shelters would be EMPTY and few, if any would be getting killed. Since the rescue groups get “redlist” emails each day, showing which animals are about to be killed, someone is lying.

On that note, Villaraigosa recently proclaimed that “LA is #1 in adoptions in the U.S.” But when former shelter commissioner Marie Atake, and KABC-7 challenged that in a recent report, that claim fell to “L.A. is #5″ in the U.S., which is also a dubious claim, since LA Animal Services isn’t even #1 in adoptions in L.A. County.

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