{"id":410056,"date":"2026-07-23T23:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T23:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/410056\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T23:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T23:28:08","slug":"valley-center-duck-sanctuary-founder-charged-with-animal-cruelty-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/410056\/","title":{"rendered":"Valley Center duck sanctuary founder charged with animal cruelty \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Animal cruelty charges have been filed against a Riverside County duck rescue operator who surrendered hundreds of animals<\/a> to authorities in April and then relocated to a San Diego County sanctuary that was raided last week.<\/p>\n

Howard Berkowitz was arrested July 16 by the San Diego County Sheriff\u2019s Office in Valley Center on a criminal warrant based on allegations of animal cruelty lodged by the Riverside County Department of Animal Services. Berkowitz is the owner of the Duck Sanctuary, and he was previously based in Riverside County.<\/p>\n

Though he was released from custody, the Riverside County District Attorney\u2019s Office charged him Monday with four counts of felony animal cruelty and four counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty. Prosecutors accused him of inflicting \u201cunnecessary cruelty\u201d upon hundreds of birds, including ducks, geese, turkeys, and Macaws, and three dogs \u2014 two Great Pyrenees and a shepherd mix.<\/p>\n

Berkowitz has come under fire in recent years for alleged overcrowding and animal neglect, and the Riverside County Department of Animal Services acknowledged in April that it was investigating Berkowitz after discovering \u201cimproper husbandry\u201d at his property.<\/p>\n

Berkowitz did not respond to a request for comment. Previously, he vehemently denied that his animals were mistreated, arguing \u201cthere wasn\u2019t one single sick duck on my property.\u201d<\/p>\n

820 birds seized<\/p>\n

Over the course of about 12 hours, San Diego County Department of Animal Services seized<\/a> more than 820 birds and two dogs from the Valley Center property on Lilac Vista Drive after receiving reports that the animals were sick and not receiving proper care. Of the birds removed, 400 were ducks, and other species included geese, roosters, peacocks, pigeons and parrots.<\/p>\n

Animal control officers and partner agencies transported the animals to two county shelters for treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we arrived, our officers found birds living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions,\u201d Brie Sarvis, animal services director and chief veterinarian, said in a news release<\/a>. \u201cOur staff and partners worked tirelessly to ensure these animals were safe, and we\u2019re now focused on giving each one the care they need to recover.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ashli Shore, a co-founder of the Shore Sanctuary in the Eucalyptus Hills area of Lakeside who has been assisting with the rescue, said about a dozen animals have been hospitalized.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the issues that these birds are going to be dealing with chronically all stemmed from very easily treated infections,\u201d said Shore, a veterinary technician. \u201cUnfortunately, because they never received any care, a lot of them are going to have issues long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n

The animals removed from Valley Center were evaluated by veterinary staff last week as San Diego County Animal Services continues its investigation. \u201cNext steps in the enforcement process will be determined as the case develops,\u201d the news release stated.<\/p>\n

Riverside rescue<\/p>\n

In April, when Berkowitz surrendered 480 ducks at his Anza sanctuary,<\/a> he acknowledged he had become \u201coverwhelmed,\u201d and he insisted he had turned over the animals on the condition that the ducks would go to a sanctuary. Instead, the Riverside County Department of Animal Services hosted a same-day, \u201cfirst-come, first-served\u201d adoption event and turned over more than half of the animals to a livestock business in Norco.<\/p>\n

Activists were baffled and outraged, saying several sanctuaries had been prepared to adopt the ducks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could have been a really positive situation,\u201d Shore said at the time. \u201cUnfortunately, it was just handled very poorly.\u201d Regardless, Shore said she and other animal rescuers were willing to take in ducks.<\/p>\n

Sascha Knopf, an animal advocate behind the Facebook page \u201cThe Duck Sanctuary Exposed,\u201d alleged Berkowitz\u2019s neglect had been going on for years, and she shared photographs with the Southern California News Group that purportedly showed mounds of feathers, feces and garbage at one of Berkowitz\u2019s previous properties.<\/p>\n

Shore said that over the years, she\u2019d examined a few sick or severely injured animals taken from the Duck Sanctuary.<\/p>\n

In April, Berkowitz told the Southern California News Group that he was done with the animal rescue world. He said he planned to take his remaining ducks and move to Northern California, where he would go back to selling classic cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m shutting it down, I\u2019m done,\u201d he said. \u201cMake me the criminal, make me the bad guy. I don\u2019t care anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, he resurfaced in San Diego County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Animal cruelty charges have been filed against a Riverside County duck rescue operator who surrendered hundreds of animals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,138,643,181,23,100,3054,74,84,76,75,30905],"class_list":["post-410056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-environment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-north-county","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-valley-center-uninc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}