Santa Barbara County Animal Services seeking 500 Properties for New Emergency Livestock Registry

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Santa Barbara County Animal Services launched a new emergency livestock registry. 

In order to strengthen current wildfire protection efforts, the county launched the Animal Services first livestock registry on April 1st.

Lisa White owns two horses in Santa Barbara.

For their safety, she signed them up for the livestock registry.

“It will be super valuable because time and resources are finite. In the case of emergencies we have to move quickly," said animal services director Sarah Aguilar of Santa Barbara County.

The county launched the Animal Services first livestock registry to better facilitate care for registered animals in the event of an emergency.

“It will also help us when we’re responding in these emergency situations whether they’re wildfires, floods, weather, events, and things like that," said emergency preparedness program manager Matt Higgs of the Santa Barbara County Health Department.

Residents can use the livestock registry to provide the county with information about what kinds of animals and how many animals they own.

This information will help with rescue efforts during an emergency.

“We wanna know if people have goats pigs cattle Llamas donkey anything that’s going to need a larger vehicle for evacuations," said Aguilar.

Public health hopes to see at least 500 properties on their registry in the next few months.

“It will help us in our Planning in our evaluation of things like evacuation routes," said Higgs.

"And so having that information about where large animals are residing, and where they might be evacuating from in the case of a fire or flood, earthquake will be really useful for planning purposes," said Aguilar.

The registry also allows users to list themselves as able to self-evacuate or in need of evacuation assistance.

Learn more about the new registry at: Animal Services first livestock registry.