LOS ANGELES (CNS) - In a move to address overcrowding at the six city- run animal shelters, a Los Angeles City Council committee Wednesday approved a motion calling for a moratorium on breeding permits.

The three-member Neighborhood and Community Enrichment Committee voted unanimously to move forward with the plan, which would instruct the city attorney to amend city law and place an immediate moratorium on new breeding permits. The motion will be considered by the full council at a later date.

"The point of a moratorium isn't necessarily to stop breeding -- that has to happen through enforcement," Staycee Dains, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services, said prior to Wednesday's vote.

"The importance of a moratorium is to signal to the community clearly that our shelters are not in any position to take in one more animal."

The committee agreed that the moratorium would be lifted once shelters were at or below 75% capacity for three consecutive months, and could be automatically reinstated if shelter capacity rises above 75%.

Dains said at a September LAAS Commission meeting that the city had issued about 1,200 breeding permits so far this year, and is on pace to finish the year with about 1,800.

She said that while the moratorium puts the city in a "precarious position," it nonetheless reflects the reality of the ongoing shelter crisis.

While a moratorium may not necessarily stop unwanted litters, the entire community will understand that breeding is not an activity supported by the city, according to Dains.

"Organizations that are pro-breeding are not organizations that do anything to help animals in animal shelters," she said. "They're simply creating animals for us to kill later on, and that is not appropriate."

Daines said LAAS does everything it can not to euthanize animals because it's inhumane and causes emotional and mental distress for staff.

Councilman John Lee, who sits on the committee, asked if LAAS would benefit if it could make breeders take back animals. Dains said it would be wonderful if every breeder felt committed to the purebred animals that are filling the city's six shelters.

"It used to be, 20 years ago, when I first started in animal welfare, there weren't a lot of purebred animals in the shelters," she said. "But if you go into shelters, every single husky and German shepherd that's in there, almost every single one of them are purebred."

Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, who chairs the committee, questioned Dains about LAAS internal policies regarding the issuing of permits -- specifically, the conversations around spaying and neutering animals, and the consequences of not doing so.

Dains said it's something LAAS is working on, but that the challenge lies in part from a lack of staff. Overall, more education and community outreach could take place at the shelters or out in the community if the LAAS had enough staff, she said.

Dains told committee members she would be requesting $3 million to fund 120 as-needed staff to get the department through June 30 -- around the time the next fiscal year would begin.

"We need that desperately," she said.

The money would be used to hire 90 animal care technician staff, formerly called animal shelter relief workers, and 30 clerical staff to assist with adoptions, she said.

Gary and Shannon

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