off the charts

LA Called 311 About Dead Animals 7,493 Times This Year. In 22% of Cases, the Animal Was Gone When the City Showed Up.

April 2, 2026🌴 Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles residents have filed 7,493 dead animal removal requests in 2026 — roughly 83 per day, every single day, rain or shine. But the city's own resolution data reveals that 1,655 of those calls (22%) were closed as "QC-Item Not Out," meaning a city worker drove to the location and found… nothing. The dead animal had vanished. Whether it was collected by a neighbor, consumed by wildlife, or simply got up and walked away is not tracked in any dataset the city publishes.

The Baseline, Which Is Already Absurd

Los Angeles files more dead animal removal requests per day than most cities file in a month. In Q1 2026 alone: 2,531 in January, 2,192 in February, 2,691 in March. That's a pace of roughly 2,500 per month, or about 83 per day. For context, the 2025 data (April–December) shows monthly totals of 3,000–3,400, suggesting 2026 is running slightly below last year's pace — which is either good news, or just means the animals are dying somewhere the city can't find them. The peak single day in 2026 so far: January 26, with 120 dead animal removal requests. What happened on January 26? The data does not say.

The Neighborhood Breakdown Is Exactly What You'd Expect (And Also Surprising)

The top neighborhood for dead animal removal requests in 2026 is Empowerment Congress Southeast (265 requests), followed by Reseda (187), Sylmar (186), Boyle Heights (180), and Pacoima (163). The Valley is heavily represented, which tracks — more single-family homes, more yards, more wildlife corridors, more coyotes doing what coyotes do. The most concentrated single address? 7338 Alabama Ave in Canoga Park, with 11 dead animal removal requests in 2026. Eleven. From one address. In three months. The city has not published what's happening at 7338 Alabama Ave in Canoga Park, and frankly, we're not sure we want to know.

The "Item Not Out" Problem

The 22% "QC-Item Not Out" rate is the real story here. The city dispatches a crew, they drive to the location, and the animal is gone. This happens 1,655 times in a single quarter. The most charitable explanation: a neighbor or property owner removed it before the city arrived. The less charitable explanation: the reporting system allows people to file requests for animals that were never there, or that moved on their own (coyotes, raccoons, and possums are famously difficult to keep track of). The city has no way to distinguish between these scenarios in the data. The second-most-common resolution code, "AR-Request Completed" (4,951 cases), means the city actually found and removed something — so the system does work, roughly 66% of the time.

What Would a Reporter Ask Next?

The obvious question: what species? The 311 dataset doesn't break down dead animal removal by animal type — it's just "Dead Animal Removal," full stop, no further questions. A public records request to LA Sanitation could theoretically yield species data. The second question: is the 22% "not out" rate consistent across neighborhoods, or are certain areas filing more phantom reports? The data exists to answer this. The third question, which nobody has asked yet: what is happening at 7338 Alabama Ave in Canoga Park, and does the person who lives there know that their address has become a recurring character in the city's dead animal database?

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