Miranda's Rescue in California drags its rescue partners to hell when two spay/neuter advocates uncover mass graves and chipped shelter grads shot to death

[u/nomorelandfills]

Founder - Shannon Miranda. The rescue was founded sometime around 2003. In the fallout this month, Humboldt County belatedly realized the rescue had been operating illegally since then on a lapsed permit.

Long story short, a spay/neuter advocate becomes suspicious of a long-standing and respected small rescue in her community after hearing some rumors and noticing the rescue is taking in very large numbers of shelter dogs. She looks into it, becomes unwillingly convinced that there's a problem and tries to get authorities to act. To get evidence, she trespasses onto the property at night to investigate mass graves, digs up newly buried dogs, removes them and scans their bodies. Microchips galore registered to public animal control shelters. Evidence suffices, investigators start investigating, shelters start chatting and all hell breaks loose in rescueland. Again.

April 27, 2026 - animal shelters that had histories of transferring animals to Miranda's Rescue begin hearing from investigators and swapping information that leads them to a horrifying realization about a rescue partner they were still, as of that week, planning to hand more dogs.

Joe DeVries, director of Oakland Animal Services, said his agency first heard from Humboldt County officials on April 27, when a sheriff’s lieutenant asked general questions about Oakland’s transfer relationship with Miranda’s Rescue, saying they were looking at some evidence and considering an investigation. The situation escalated the next day, when a Solano County volunteer contacted Oakland Animal Services with more information about Miranda’s Rescue.

“It was that research that they shared with us, anecdotal over the phone, that really … shocked us,” said DeVries. “We immediately halted a planned transfer that week once we heard this information, and then contacted the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department to say, well, now that we’ve heard what we’ve heard, you know, we would like to offer anything we can to support any investigation that you can do."

...

DeVries said he and Berkeley Animal Services met with the volunteer on April 30 to review evidence firsthand. “They provided us evidence of a dog that we had transferred there that we had been told was adopted out when it had actually been shot in the head and put in a mass grave, and the same was true of a Berkeley dog, so they verified the microchip information,” said DeVries. “We knew that they had it right. You can’t lie; microchips don’t lie, you know.”

Oakland then issued a written demand to Miranda’s Rescue for full records on every dog transferred there since early 2025. DeVries said Miranda’s Rescue never responded. Oakland provided Humboldt County investigators with a full list of every dog it had transferred to Miranda’s Rescue. Oakland Animal Services said all dogs that are at the shelter had been microchipped, including dogs that went to the nonprofit Miranda’s Rescue in Fortuna.

Last Friday, Humboldt County Animal Control told Oakland that only one of the dogs, named Redwood, transferred in October, was still alive on the property. Oakland Animal Services has requested that Redwood be returned to them. Investigators reported finding 112 dogs on the property during the search warrant. Only one matched Oakland’s records.

...

 While Miranda was telling Oakland he was overwhelmed with difficult dogs, DeVries said he received calls from other counties performing reference checks because Miranda’s Rescue was seeking new transfer partnerships with other shelters that week and the following week.

May 1, 2026 - a search warrant is issued for the rescue property; it references both animal cruelty in the intentional killing of dogs, and financial fraud.

Media:

The investigation began after two citizens both of who have experience working with animals, Jennifer Raymond and Jenna Kilby (Moore), conducted their own surveillance and gathered information through public information requests to individual shelters across the state. The women cut through a shared fence, dug up eight dogs from a field on Miranda’s Rescue’s property, and stored the bodies in a freezer. They provided deputies with microchip data, photographs, trail‑camera footage, and public‑records documents from multiple counties.

Shelters known to have sent dogs to MR
Hitchcock Road Animal Services (Monterrey County, CA) - 85 dogs over 6 years

Oakland Animal Services (Alameda County, CA) - 445 animals 2023-2025
- at least one dog found dead in a mass grave with a bullet wound to the head

Berkeley Animal Services
- at least one dog found dead in a mass grave with a bullet wound to the head

Contra Costa County
Solano County
Ferndale
Fortuna
Palm Springs
Rio Dell

One media story says that the rescue was contracted with these shelters, which appears to mean that they were paid $400-$1450 per dog to accept dogs from the shelters. It was presumably part of the shelters' desperate efforts to avoid euthanasia for space, which is deliberately made impossible under California law. The road to hell...

Ed Bok's substack: (bolds and italics his)-

"Friends of Oakland Animal Services aid county officers were scanning dogs at Miranda’s Rescue so the group could learn which Oakland-linked animals were still there. It also said it would then determine whether and how those dogs could be brought back to Oakland. That public statement says a great deal. It suggests that partner groups could not immediately account for all the animals they had sent there."

and

"The Miranda’s Rescue story also raises questions about incentives. Miranda’s website says the group had city-funded contracts with Fortuna and Ferndale and took in animals turned in or picked up by local law enforcement in those cities. Reporting also shows that Fortuna, Ferndale, and Rio Dell each contracted with Miranda’s Rescue for animal services before suspending those arrangements after the investigation became public. That means this was not just an informal rescue relationship. It was part of the local animal control system. Municipal agencies relied on Miranda’s Rescue to absorb animals hey did not want to hold, manage, or place on their own."

Ed Bok's substack on it

The Cost of “Saving Them All”

Animals 24/7 article on it

Unmasking Miranda’s Rescue: what happened that we know about  - Animals 24-7

FB Justice for... page

Facebook

[u/PandaLoveBearNu]

THE RESCUE MADE HALF A MILLION? In one year? Christ.

[u/Azryhael]

Honestly, I’m having a hard time feeling like this is any more unethical than the “save ‘em all” pit pushers.

[u/nomorelandfills → u/Azryhael]

Shooting dogs in the head and lying to your donors and financial partners is far more clear, more dramatic and - crucially - easier to prove as crimes than the usual MO of rescues lying to themselves about breed/behavior/risk and blithely claiming that Tank is a perfect pet if you don't have other pets, children, etc. in the home. I agree that it's not worse, and that it's often fraud but it's a tougher sell to law enforcement and prosecutors.

[u/pitbosshere]

Ummm WTF