DELTA Rescue, Rock N Paws, Duck Sanctuary, Miranda’s Rescue, & Villa Chardonnay/ Horses With Wings disasters come like toppling dominoes
FORTUNA, JULIAN, & ELK CREEK, California––Amid the early 2026 meltdowns of five of the biggest and most publicized California animal sanctuaries, one of the oldest, biggest, least publicized and quietly stable California animal sanctuaries, the 7,000-acre Suwanna Ranch sanctuary near Elk Creek, California, operated since 1997 by the Humane Farming Association, has quietly taken in 70 of the hardest to rehome farmed animals.
The Suwanna Ranch sanctuary accommodates only farmed animals who have been impounded by law enforcement in cruelty and neglect cases.
Stays within means
That means the Suwanna Ranch does not accommodate collections of hoarded pit bulls, feral cats, and exotic pets, among the most abundant animals often involved in mass neglect cases.
But it does mean that the Suwanna Ranch stays within its means, rather than trying to “save them all” and ending up saving none.
Most of the animals left in need by the recent California sanctuary failures have not fit criteria for admission to Suwanna Ranch, but many of those left by the April 2026 bankruptcy of the Villa Chardonnay/Horses With Wings sanctuary near Julian, California, 60 miles northeast of San Diego, did.
Anticipating the bankruptcy, the Humane Farming Association prepared for the Villa Chardonnay/Horses With Wings crisis for almost a year.
Nobody, meanwhile, appears to have prepared much in advance for the other big sanctuary crises. Which is part of why they happened.
Miranda’s Rescue allegedly became Miranda’s ditch
Technically Miranda’s Rescue, primarily a pit bull rescue, has not failed yet. Indeed, as of a May 22, 2026 Facebook posting, “Miranda’s Rescue is open and fully operational.”
Failure, however, appears imminent and inevitable.
The Humboldt Lost & Found Pets page on Facebook, serving Humboldt County, has been flooded for days with desperate messages from individuals, rescues, and even established animal shelters, hoping to discover the fate of pit bulls and sometimes other dogs and cats who were transferred to Miranda’s Rescue in recent months and years, purportedly for adoption.
Summarized Erica Bowman of the East Bay Times on May 17, 2026, “Shannon Miranda, the 55-year-old founder of Miranda’s Rescue, a nonprofit animal rescue in Fortuna, California,” in the far northwestern part of the state, “is believed by investigators to have been killing dogs so he could accept more shipments from Oakland Animal Services [and many other agencies] for financial gain.
$510,000 in payments to take pit bulls
“The operations manager of Oakland Animal Services,” Bowman continued, “told investigators that Miranda was paid $400 to $1,000 for every dog he accepted. The Oakland shelter alone was transferring hundreds of dogs per year to him — enough to generate at least $178,000 in revenue over three years.
“In the past year,” Bowman said, “it’s estimated Miranda received over 600 dogs from various shelters statewide, totaling roughly $510,000 in payments.”
Much of the money was allegedly invested in purchasing upscale Las Vegas real estate.
The Miranda’s Rescue location, incidentally, south of Fortuna, is actually near the ghost town of Jacobsen’s Flat, renamed Miranda in 1905 by postmaster Etta Coombs, not after a Miranda family.
This calls into question whether Shannon Miranda, and the several other people using the Miranda surname on the Miranda’s Rescue board and staff, were in fact always “Mirandas.”
Miranda warnings believed to be imminent
Confirmed the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office on May 21, 2026, “The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office’s Major Crimes Division is investigating Miranda’s Rescue over credible allegations of felony animal abuse, animal cruelty, fraud and conspiracy, and is seeking additional information from the public.”
The investigation reportedly began with the May 1, 2026 discovery of a mass grave at Miranda’s Rescue containing eight pit bulls who had apparently been shot in the head.
ANIMALS 24-7 had been tipped off about the alleged conditions at Miranda’s Sanctuary on April 15, 2026 by Jennifer Raymond, a neighboring property owner who said that local law enforcement had ignored her complaints. ANIMALS 24-7 responded with two emails of advice about collecting and presenting actual evidence of criminality, but does not know whether any of our advice contributed to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office finally obtaining a search warrant and entering the Miranda’s Sanctuary property.
DELTA Rescue & Rock N Paws
Also technically still operating but believed to be wobbling is DELTA Rescue, of Action, California, east of Los Angeles, whose 77-year-old founder, Leo Grillo, was “arrested on a federal criminal complaint charging him with the attempted kidnapping of a former employee who won a $6.7 million wrongful-termination judgment against him,” the U.S. Justice Department announced on March 4, 2026.
(See Leo Grillo, 43 years at DELTA Rescue, faces 20 years for alleged kidnap plot.)
DELTA Rescue has housed as many as 1,400 dogs and cats at a time, including several hundred pit bulls, all of them recovered by Grillo himself after having been dumped in the adjacent Angeles National Forest.
Just to the north, in the Lake Hughes area of the Antelope Valley, the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care & Control and the Pasadena Humane Society on March 20, 2026 evacuated 250 dogs and 66 cats from alleged neglectful conditions at Rock N Pawz Rescue, founded and operated by Christine De Anda.
De Anda has told media she will contest the allegation of neglect in a lawsuit seeking to have the animals returned to her.
(From Channel 3 News video)
Quack
Meanwhile, the Riverside County Department of Animal Services on April 14, 2026 impounded 480 ducks, turkeys, and miscellaneous other fowl from the most recent of multiple leased locations occupied over many years by Duck Sanctuary founder Howard Berkowitz.
Berkowitz, also known as Dave Berks, has been known for frequently relocating, allegedly leaving unpaid debts and damaged premises behind time and again.
Already messy, the Duck Sanctuary “rescue” soon became messier still.
Reported Rachel Fobar for the Southern California News Group on April 26, 2026, “More than half of the 480 animals were immediately turned over to a livestock business in Norco that began selling them on Facebook, ostensibly to some people who planned to eat them.”
Fobar further alleged that some of the birds were taken by a suspected cockfighter.
(See How landlords & animal control made horrific hoarding cases worse.)
“We have to save this horse”
The Villa Chardonnay/Horses With Wings sanctuary, founded by Monika Kerber in 2003, operated first with partner Louise Gardner and later with subsequent partner Mercedes Flores, may have been struggling at least since 2012, when Kerber was sued in a “collections/creditor” case by the Nielsen Company, known for producing the Neilsen Ratings of television shows.
Kerber, according to her LinkedIn page and a 2015 profile by Alexandra Lynch, distributed by the Phelps Media Group, formerly “owned several successful businesses including a small chain of restaurants and a French bistro” in and around Mexico City, Mexico, after having “worked at G.E. Lighting as a marketing manager” in the Chicago area.
The Villa Chardonnay/Horses With Wings sanctuary began, Kerber told Lynch, when “One day, I was on the internet and I saw a beautiful palomino who was injured and needed a home. But, they were hours from where we were. I said, ‘We have to save this horse, we have to go get her.’ Louise and I drove all night to go get her and we got there at 7:00 a.m. That is where it all started, as we saved Chardonnay from slaughter when she was only two years old. We went from one horse to 140.”
“This is really a full time job”
Thereafter, “We decided that this is really a full time job. So, I decided to leave the corporate world and take care of the animals where my real passion is,” Kerber said.
The 140 animals over the next decade became 600, on just 40 acres.
Kerber, now 59, and her partners, reportedly became overwhelmed, with conditions at Villa Chardonnay/Horses With Wings attracting complaints, many years before anything was actually done about it.
“The San Diego County Department of Animal Services repeatedly failed to take meaningful action going back as far as 2020,” alleges a Humane Farming Association media release.
“In addition to roughly 165 horses and 350 cats, the 40-acre property housed 70 farm animals including goats, alpacas, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, pigs, donkeys, ponies, and a mule,” according to the Humane Farming Association count of the Villa Chardonnay/Horses With Wings inventory.
HFA sent lawyer & investigator
Becoming aware that the Villa Chardonnay/Horses With Wings was “the subject of numerous cruelty complaints over the years,” and that Kerber had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the Humane Farming Association assigned investigator Gail Eisnitz and attorney Grace Wainscoat to monitor the situation.
Eisnitz and Wainscoat “continued to investigate animal abuse claims and monitored the bankruptcy case, appearing at bankruptcy meetings and hearings, including questioning Kerber under oath regarding the care of the animals,” details the Humane Farming Association media release.
The Humane Farming Association “also submitted numerous requests under the California Public Records Act to obtain information about the animals and prior investigations into reports of abuse,” the HFA media release continues.
“Through its investigation,” the media release says, the Humane Farming Association “uncovered serious operational concerns and animal neglect. In December 2025,” the Humane Farming Association “urged the U.S. Trustee’s office to appoint an independent trustee, emphasizing that a trustee would have the ability to authorize steps such as veterinary inspection and access to the property.
“Urgent veterinary access”
“When the bankruptcy court appointed a trustee a month later, the Humane Farming Association advocated for urgent veterinary access to inspect the animals.
“On April 23, 2026,” the media release continues, “the Humane Farming Association funded and conducted a comprehensive veterinary inspection of all animals, and prepared to rescue the farm animals.”
“Sick and injured animals ” were found, the Humane Farming Association charges, “who appeared to have been left to suffer in an ammonia-filled ‘hospice barn,’ with an apparent lack of adequate clean shelter or true palliative care. Many of the farm animals were kept in small, substandard pens without access to the outdoors, and harsh conditions caused some animals to attack each other and/or self-mutilate.”
The Humane Farming Association report enabled San Diego Humane Society investigators “to establish probable cause” to execute a search warrant on May 1, 2026.
“The bankruptcy court ordered that ownership of the animals be turned over to the San Diego Humane Society to facilitate the rescue,” the Humane Farming Association media release recounted.
San Diego Humane Society
“Teams from San Diego, aided by staff from the Pasadena Humane Society and Marin Humane, worked all weekend to evaluate, treat and relocate cats, dogs, farm animals and birds to other shelters,” reported Karen Kucher for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
“Some appeared healthy and stable, while others were found to be without adequate care and husbandry, officials said,” Kuchner added, mentioning that “four horses, a pony, a bull, and at least one kitten” were euthanized on site.
San Diego Humane Society chief of humane law enforcement Jace Huggins told media that, “Basic, standard medical care and husbandry was not being met. While I was on scene, I found a cat who had a massive wound on her neck, where you could see deeply, deeply into the neck’s musculature, that was just open. And a cat who was completely missing an ear for unknown reasons. We saw horses who were horribly thin.”
Continued Kucher, “334 cats were transported to the San Diego Humane Society’s San Diego and El Cajon campuses. Thirty dogs and dozens of other animals, including alpacas, sheep, goats, pigs, geese, ducks, turkeys and peacocks, were also moved to San Diego Humane Society shelters or county Animal Services facilities.
No charges yet
“Huggins said another 50 to 100 cats are believed to remain on the property,” Kucher reported on May 5, 2026. “Between 160 to 165 horses and ponies were also still at the sanctuary, because officials decided it was safer to treat and care for them there instead of transporting them to other locations.
“Huggins said a criminal investigation is underway to try to determine if animal neglect charges should be filed against the sanctuary’s owners, and that evidence is still being collected.”
The total number of animals found at Villa Chardonnay/Horses With Wings meanwhile rose over the next two weeks to 446 cats, 175 horses, 30 dogs, 30 chickens, 12 goats, and several dozen animals of other species.
Going into the Memorial Day 2026 weekend, charges against Kerber and/or Flores have apparently not yet been filed.
San Diego Humane Society is itself not without sin
The San Diego Humane Society evidently welcomed the opportunity to burnish a reputation much soiled over the past decade.
Episodes have included rehoming a pit bull who then killed a baby in 2016; see Newborn killed by pit bull rehomed by San Diego Humane Society & SPCA.
Also, transferring 318 small mammals to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona who were then relayed to a snake dealer in 2023; see 318 missing small pets: San Diego Humane vs. HS of Southern Arizona, and Cold, hard evidence re small mammals missing from humane societies.
In 2025 the San Diego Humane Society lost the long-running “cat control trial of the century” over whether so-called “return to field” of tame, friendly cats can be considered humane, then flagrantly misrepresented the outcome. See Injunction vs. San Diego HS “return-to-field” cat practices made permanent.
In addition, the San Diego Humane Society response to alleged animal abuse at the San Diego PETCO Park Rodeo has been much criticized by other animal advocacy organizations. See San Diego H.S. says “no cruelty” in rodeo death of 8-months-pregnant mare and San Diego Rodeo witnesses “not credible,” finds judge, but rules for the rodeo.
Transports to Suwanna Ranch
The San Diego Humane Society response to the Villa Chardonnay/ Horses With Wings case was scarcely less controversial, in particular the transfer of 65 cats to the Humane Society of North Texas in Fort Worth, via Wings of Rescue.
Fort Worth is scarcely a city short of cats.
“Transports to Suwanna Ranch,” about 700 miles north, “began on May 15, 2026,” a San Diego Humane Society media release said.
“On the first trip, two potbellied pigs, 12 goats, one sheep and three chickens were transported from County Animal Services in Bonita.”
Over the next two days, “Transport efforts continued with 29 chickens, four geese, four turkeys, eight ducks, four donkeys, one mini mule, five mini horses,” and a horse named Ginger.
That was not controversial. The Suwanna Ranch, located about 80 miles south as the crow flies from Miranda’s Rescue, but 162 miles by the shortest road route through the rugged Pacific Coast Range mountains, far from any major metropolitan media centers, well off tourist routes, has never been controversial, or even very well-known, in nearly 29 years of operation.
“We’ll be able to keep going for quite a long time”
“Our object in obtaining this land,” Humane Farming Association Founder and president Brad Miller told ANIMALS 24-7, the first outside visitor to the Suwanna Ranch back in 1998, “was to see how long we could maintain our policy of never turning away a farm animal who had been involved in a cruelty case, who had been referred to us by a humane society, animal control department, police department, fire department, or county sheriff’s office.”
The Humane Farming Association previously operated a farm animal refuge in Fairfield, California, just north of San Francisco, but it “was becoming a little crowded,” Miller admitted. “We think, with this extra space, we’ll now be able to keep going for quite a long time.”
The Suwanna Ranch is named in honor of Suwanna Gauntlett, of the Barbara Delano Foundation, who helped the Humane Farming Association land a grant of $2 million for the initial acquisition and improvement of what were then “only” 4,000 acres.
Four parallel valleys
The Suwanna Ranch occupies four parallel valleys in the northern California foothills.
The first valley, the only one visible from the nearest public road, then included three small farmhouses, two big barns, and scattered outbuildings.
The only entrance was over a bridge across the Stony River. The Humane Farming Association had acquired the land “on both sides of the river. That keeps the animals safe,” Miller explained.
The other three valleys were previously used only for cattle grazing, with road access only to the second valley, which includes a reservoir. All four valleys came with wells. Hoofed animals share the valley floors.
The remainder of the rolling hills, shale ridges, and scrub oak forest continue to be habitat for abundant wildlife, including deer, elk, pumas, bobcats, coyotes and perhaps an occasional bear.
(Daniel Leventhal photo)
Among the early arrivals were the 80 survivors among a flock of 102 emus whom frustrated investors had attempted to beat to death with baseball bats near Dallas, Texas; 600 emus who had been abandoned to starve on a farm just an hour’s drive away in Orland, California; 60 goats who were seized in an alleged animal collecting case by the Peninsula Humane Society, of San Mateo, California; Monroe, a black angus steer, a former 4-H project who was stabbed and severely beaten by juvenile delinquents; several cattle who arrived with softball-sized holes in their sides from use in research by the University of California at Davis; and a variety of other cattle, sheep, and pigs, including former feral pigs.
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It is very disturbing that some animal sanctuaries, supported by peoples’ hard earned money and with emotional support, turn out to be fraudulent either mistreating or even destroying the animals entrusted to them. Your article mentions 4 or 5 of them in California.
There are thousands of sanctuaries in the country, and no doubt the vast majority are doing a wonderful job, but how do you know?
What way can people use to find which ones are bonafide and which might be fraudulent?
In your great articles that are so well researched, some time you might tackle that question. It could be very valuable for all of us who contribute to ‘sanctuaries.’
One quick way to see if a sanctuary meets humane standards is to check whether it is accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries, the Association of Sanctuaries [TAOS], or the American Sanctuary Association. None of these accreditation organizations allow breeding, so if a sanctuary is promoting animal births, you can bet it falls short.
One way to learn the truth of a sanctuary’s identity is to visit.
Direct contact with the sanctuary–with the animals, director, and animal care staff provides more information than thousands of hours reading a website.
Another informative tool is to ask questions—about specific animals, medical care, adoption standards, life-time care for animals who cannot be adopted,
and broader questions as well–such as their positions on specific animal rights issues, do they serve slaughtered animal products at their fundraisers, and an assessment of their overall willingness to engage with you. There is a huge range in quality of responses to questions–from no response or superficial response or worthless response that reveals nothing to a welcoming response that values your interest, concerns, and love for animals.
A welcoming response from a group indicates an interest in something beyond your money. It indicates a desire for your participation and active engagement in protecting animals.
Unfortunately many groups operate on the well-known NIH principle. They are closed to input from their donors. If ideas or actions are Not-Invented-Here–by their own staff–the self-described experts–they are not interested. But they do want your money.
It’s important for the donor to understand what kind of relationship he/she wants with an animal
protection group—before providing funds.
I would like to add that animal advocates can get a quick financial summary
of an animal protection charity by going to google and typing in the name of the charity and
propublica–tax returns. Then you will know—an organization’s financial assets–
including how much of those assets go to the salary of the CEO as well as other staff members.
Understanding the financial resources available to protect animals, a potential donor
can ask how much–if any–money is being used for whatever aspect of animal protection
is important to one.
One can also explore what improvements–if any–have occurred over decades with the available
funds. Certainly there have been some improvements in animal protection. The question persists—
have the improvements been strong enough and wide enough and pervasive enough considering
the wealth that exists within pockets of this movement?
Extremely important to note is whether a sanctuary depends for operating support on paying visitors. If it does, it is not really a sanctuary, but a zoo. Most legitimate sanctuaries admit visitors on a relatively restricted basis, but a legitimate sanctuary is structured for the benefit of the animals, not to attract and accommodate paying visitors.
For years I donated to Leo Grillo and DELTA until I learned of his misdeeds. What a mournful litany of people who might have initially been well intended but whose mission turned into a squalid, inhumane venture of hoarding and/or an unconscionable money-making enterprise.
It is good to learn of the efforts of those of Suwanna Ranch & The Humane Farming Association.
As your previous informed contributors note, it is vital to check with Charity Group and/or Global Sanctuaries to which I now donate. Again your research is invaluable and much appreciated. As our funds diminish in our current political climate, it is essential that we contribute to those who are still doing much needed rescue and rehab. wisely, if and when we can afford.
Remembering several horrifying incidents of parrot sanctuaries in the past few years, in which the sanctuary owners would not let the public in or had no help, and ultimately were found to have hoarding situations with dead/dying birds and often physical and/or mental health issues of the owners, it is clear that there is often no regular oversight to most, if not many, of these places. This is a heartbreaking and serious problem that needs to be addressed.
ANIMALS 24-7 covered the worst of the parrot sanctuary disasters here: Cockatoo Rescue collapse makes case for Animal Welfare Act inspection.