Bodies of 117 dogs are found at ‘no-kill’ sanctuary in California

After days of turning over soil on the grounds of a self-described no-kill animal sanctuary in Northern California, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said Friday that investigators had unearthed the bodies of 117 dogs, 21 dog skulls and hundreds of bones.

Many of the 70 dogs that were X-rayed at the scene showed evidence of bullet fragments, the sheriff’s office said.

The gruesome discoveries were announced as investigators pursued an animal cruelty and fraud investigation into the disappearance of about 730 animals that had been placed at Miranda’s Rescue Animal Sanctuary in Fortuna, California, since January 2025, the authorities said.

Inside a barn, they found an area where authorities said the dogs were most likely killed, along with 600 dog collars.

In a field on the property, investigators found “additional deceased canines in advanced stages of decomposition” that they said they did not remove, citing their condition. “Investigators documented the location and observations, and the site was covered, leaving the animals in their final resting place,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

“This investigation is just getting started,” Sheriff William Honsal said in the statement. “There is a tremendous amount of data to process, witnesses to interview and evidence to examine.”

The investigation would most likely take “a significant amount of time,” the sheriff’s office said, citing its “nature and complexity.” No charges have been filed.

Shannon Miranda, the founder of the animal sanctuary, could not be reached for comment Friday, and it was not clear if he had a lawyer.

In a statement that Miranda posted on the animal sanctuary’s website on June 18, he cited two episodes that drew attention to his business. Both, he said, involved him putting down dogs with behavioral problems that had endangered members of his staff, volunteers and other animals. He urged the public to wait for all the facts to emerge before passing judgment.

“Allegations made without a full understanding of the circumstances can harm not only my reputation but also the future of an organization that has served this community for decades,” he wrote.

The Times-Standard reported the issues at Miranda’s Rescue, which have also been the subject of reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Investigators said Miranda would ask for anywhere from $500 to several thousand dollars as a surrender fee, a not uncommon practice at some shelters.

Jennifer Raymond, an animal-rights activist who runs a spay-and-neuter business, said that she had been hearing rumors of animal cruelty at Miranda’s Rescue for years, but that her concerns were waved off by local authorities. She said she requested public records that showed Miranda’s Rescue had taken in hundreds of dogs, most of which, she believed, would never find a home in small Humboldt County, which has a population of about 133,000.

A little over a year ago, she bought a property next to the sanctuary and watched the comings and goings at the sanctuary through a second-floor window. She said she observed a truck in the driveway with a large backhoe attached. Shortly after, a big pile of dirt appeared.

“Finally, I decided that either I was going to give up on this project or I would have to break the law, and I decided to break the law,” she said.

In April, Raymond said, she and another activist trespassed onto the Miranda’s Rescue property and dug up eight dead dogs with bullet wounds in their heads. Two of them, she believes, were puppies.

She turned the carcasses over to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, which served a search warrant at the rescue on May 1. Since then, the sheriff’s office has undertaken an expansive investigation that involved removing the top layers of soil and the use of ground-penetrating radar to look for anomalies in the soil that could signal the locations of gravesites for animals.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2026 The New York Times Company