Rio Dell seeks community funding for new animal kennel
Rio Dell asked the community to help pay for a $125,000 animal kennel after ending its Miranda’s Rescue contract. The city wants residents to cover 30 percent.
Rio Dell has canceled its contract with Miranda’s Rescue and is asking residents, businesses and animal advocates to help fund a new city-owned animal kennel. The project is estimated at $125,000, and the city is seeking community support for 30 percent of the total.
The fundraising push marks a shift from a contracted rescue model to a municipal facility of Rio Dell’s own, a first for the city. Knopp said the campaign had just started and donations had already begun to come in.
The move comes against the backdrop of a widening investigation into Miranda’s Rescue Animal Sanctuary at 1603 Sandy Prairie Road in Fortuna. On June 25, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Division completed a second search warrant operation and follow-up investigation there, with the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office, California Attorney General’s Office, California Department of Justice, United States Department of Agriculture and Federal Bureau of Investigation involved in the case.
County investigators believed Miranda’s Rescue had received more than 900 animals between January 2025 and spring 2026. Oakland Animal Services sent 205 dogs to Miranda’s Rescue in 2025, adding to the pressure on shelters and rescues already strained across the region.
Rio Dell’s kennel plan also fits into Humboldt County’s broader animal-care system, where the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Animal Shelter generally takes in stray, abandoned and neglected domesticated animals but typically does not accept owner surrenders. The county shelter depends on nonprofit partners such as Friends for Life Animal Rescue and Companion Animal Foundation to handle part of that workload.
For Rio Dell, the question is no longer whether the city needs an alternative to Miranda’s Rescue, but how quickly it can build one and who will pay to keep it operating. The city’s kennel proposal leaves local government, not a private rescue, responsible for the basic infrastructure of animal housing in the Eel River valley.
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