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This was a letter sent by one of our members to the city managers in San Diego County who contract with SDHS, which includes 13 municipalities/cities. A list of numbers and emails will be provided hopefully by the weekend for those who want to inquire with the cities on what the status is of the inquiries being done.

***Picture is of Pink the rabbit, who was one of the 262 animals that lost their lives at the hands of these two humane societies  RIP Pink
 
Dear City Managers and city personnel,

It has been 184 days since the San Diego Humane Society (SDHS) shipped 323 small pets to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona (HSSA) where they became reptile food. For the past sixth months, I have been asking Gary Weitzman, Jessica Des Lauriers, Jennifer Grantham and Brian Daughtery of the San Diego Humane Society leadership team, as well as the SDHS Board of Trustees for transparency regarding the transfer of small pets to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona. The transport updates SDHS gave throughout the fall left more questions than answers and neither the leadership team or the Board of Trustees will respond to simple questions and concerns being asked.

One of the main questions I have is “Why was the Association of Animal Welfare Advancement: Companion Animal Transport Program Model Practices (link at end of email) not adhered to? They stated that they followed these guidelines and pride themselves on creating the guidelines to set the industry standards for transports, yet nothing in the guidelines was followed.

If SDHS had done an environmental survey, they would have seen that there is one 501C3 small animal rescue in the greater Tucson area who does not have the capacity to take in 323 animals.
Why were the guidelines on animal carrier arrangements, air flow ventilation, visual inspections of every animal every 4 - 6 hours during transport, and monitoring gauges not followed? This leaves many to wonder if the animals arrived safely at HSSA in the absence of proof.

Why was the correct count of animals on the transport not known until a thorough audit was done several weeks after the transport? Industry standard is that the paperwork is supposed to be sent electronically on each animal prior to transport.
My next questions that remain unanswered are about animal selection. Every single small pet at SDHS, with the exception of one on medical hold, was sent, including 3 day old guinea pigs who weigh less than 100 grams at that age, pinky mice who can’t regulate body temperature, and baby rabbits who were to young to be sexed and vaccinated against RVHD which is a deadly, endemic rabbit disease in Arizona and California. Not only were all campuses cleared of small pets, at least 9 small animals had their relinquish dates moved up to the day before transport and fosters were mandated to relinquish their animals.

Why were the small animal relinquish dates moved up to the day before transport? This left residents of San Diego without a chance to see or adopt these pets.

Why were fosters mandated to bring in their animals for transport when they were taking up no space or resources at the SDHS? Many are now living with the guilt of turning their foster pets over on that day.

My third question that remains unanswered is: Why were there no red flags raised for COO Jessica Des Lauriers, upon arriving at HSSA, when protocols were not followed?
Upon arrival after hours, the former CPO of HSSA Christian Gonzalez, who Jessica arranged the transport with, was not at the facility to greet her. There were no animal care staff there to meet her either. Instead the head grounds keeper and a guy who oversees the Department of Corrections work crew greeted her. This seems odd for a large historic transport that had media coverage from all stations and papers in San Diego.

By the time they arrived in Tucson, the animals had been in carriers for 11 hours and were never taken into the HSSA. They did not receive intake numbers, did not have health checks done, and Jessica said food and water did not need replenished. Small animals eat a lot and water leaks from bottles transport during transport so not needing to replenish food and water after this length of time is unrealistic. By their timelines, the animals would have been in carriers for 16-18 hours when they were handed over to the reptile breeder.

Jessica and Gary claim they would not have transferred the animals had they known they were all going to one “rescue.” The animals were unloaded from the SDHS refrigerated rental truck and put on HSSA’s Department of Corrections transport bus. They were not separated or arranged by rescue or species, so it seems implausible that Jessica thought they were going to multiple rescues which she did not know the names of.
Jessica states she checked each of the 323 animals in under 45 minutes, which is not possible. She did not even know all the species on the transport or the total number of animals when asked on August 29th. How could she have checked the welfare of every individual animal and not know mice were sent? She stated it was 318 animals but as stated above it ended up being 323.

My final question for now that remains unanswered is: Why is legal action against those responsible for the inhumane death of 262 animals not being pursued and why is SDHS not interested in information I have for their private investigator?
I have been instrumental in helping to uncover what happened to the small animals. I was the one who figured out the animals were given to Colten Jones, I helped Chorus Nylander get the name of the man who gave him the text showing Colten Jones asking for help “freezing off a bunch of guinea pigs and rabbits,” and I was also the one who uncovered the “secret” location where Mr. Jones took in the animals and was running an unregistered, unlicensed business.

San Diego Humane has made little to no effort to first find the animals and now bring justice to those who harmed the animals. Yet, SDHS has stated to the media, and most of the public believes, that they are working hard on an ongoing private investigation and are pursuing civil charges. I have asked in recent days for an update on these matters but have not received one, even in regard to being able to give their private investigator information that may help.

There are a few red flags in this situation for me as well.
On September 5th, Gary Weitzman states in an email “One piece of good news is that today we received photos and documentation for 68 of the animals that were not adopted and have just returned to HSSA for care.” The issue here is that only 62 were returned. Steve Farley, the CEO of HSSA who was fired, stated 68. I am not sure how Gary got pictures and documentation of 68 animals when only 62 were returned.

In the HSSA report, that Gary states exonerates SDHS, Terri Flores lied about many things but the biggest is that she looked at physical records of previous animal transfers to Mr. Jones dating back to 2010. The issue here is that all physical records prior to 2019 were accidently destroyed when HSSA moved to their new facility, so it is not plausible that she looked at the physical records. If she lied about something this mundane, it brings into question the veracity of the entire report.

In public records requests sent August- October, I was told none of the animals were under municipal contract, which we know is a blatant lie. I was told in November that specifically no animals were under contract from the city of San Marcos, yet I know a resident of San Marcos who had to relinquish her rabbit and that rabbit was one sent to HSSA.

As a resident of San Diego county whose tax money goes toward the 20+ million dollars SDHS receives from municipal contracts each year, the lack of transparency, blatant lies, and unanswered questions is not sitting well with me. Without answers to these questions and seeing the communication between the parties directly and indirectly involved in the transport to prove there was no maleficence, I believe public was defrauded in terms of believing our tax money and donations were going to the humane care of animals and finding them homes.

There needs to be accountability on some level. If any of us were to do our jobs as incompetently as Jessica Des Laurier did hers with this transport, we would be terminated or not reappointed. The amount of pain caused to the communities of San Diego County and Tucson, AZ, as well as the rescue community nationally and internationally, is unacceptable. While the lives of 323 small animals may not have been valued by SDHS, their lives mattered to many of us. If this can happen with small animals, who is to say they can be trusted with dogs and cats?

Thank you for taking your time to read this lengthy email. I am hoping for some assistance in receiving answers from SDHS to the questions above to learn more about how my tax money was spent on this unnecessary and inhumane transport that led to the suffering of 323 animals and cruel death of 262. I have a lot of information and proof to back up everything I have stated so I am more than happy to share if additional information is needed. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me via email or by phone.

Respectfully,
——
Link to the Association of Animal Welfare Advancement Companion Animal Transport Program Model Practices
https://theaawa.org/.../02/Transport1_Update_March_2019.pdf

Cc: SDHS leadership team
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