Nearly 480 ducks need homes in Riverside County after The Duck Sanctuary in Anza closed and its founder surrendered the birds to county animal control. The Riverside County Department of Animal Services launched a mass adoption effort on Wednesday.
Howard Berkowitz ran the sanctuary for years on a straightforward logic: when someone called with ducks nobody wanted, he said yes. Easter ducklings that families couldn’t keep. Chicks from owners who didn’t think it through. He took them all.
The breaking point came in 2024. A balut supplier called him, her eggs on the verge of hatching. Balut is the Filipino delicacy made from fertilized duck eggs, and this supplier couldn’t use birds that had already hatched. Berkowitz rushed over and brought back roughly 120 hatchlings, adding them to a flock he was already straining to feed and house.
Then the accusations started online.
A social media page claimed he was mistreating the ducks and mishandling donations. Berkowitz denies it. “I have taken care of hundreds of ducks, sometimes at my own expense,” he told LAist. He said the sustained online attacks wore him down in ways that affected his mental health and pushed him toward a decision he’d been avoiding for months. He’s leaving Anza, moving to Northern California, where he’s in the process of buying a 160-acre property.
He can’t take all the ducks. That’s just the math.
Berkowitz says he planned to bring around 500 birds north with him and contacted the county to help place the remaining ducks. The county tells it differently. The Riverside County Department of Animal Services says officials removed the animals due to concerns over “improper” breeding and care, and that “limited assessments show the animals did not receive adequate caretaking.” Who initiated what isn’t settled between the two sides.
One thing isn’t in dispute. The California Department of Food and Agriculture tested a sample of the surrendered ducks for infectious diseases. The results came back clean. The birds are healthy.
The county is moving quickly to place them. People can contact [email protected] or walk into the San Jacinto Valley Animal Campus directly. Ducks are going first-come, first-served. Adoption fees are waived entirely, which matters more than it might sound. Domestic ducks typically sell for $20 to $50 at farm supply stores. Getting one free doesn’t mean it’s free to keep.
Don’t go to San Jacinto Valley Animal Campus on impulse. Domestic ducks aren’t wildlife. They can’t survive if released into a pond or park, they haven’t got the instincts for it, and doing so is both cruel and illegal in most jurisdictions. They need enclosed outdoor space with real predator protection, clean water for bathing and drinking, and consistent feeding. A pair of Pekins will eat through about 15 pounds of feed per week. The Humane Society’s domestic duck care guide lays out the full commitment clearly, and it’s worth reading before you make the trip.
The story behind the closure has drawn attention partly because the 2026 circumstances echo a pattern animal welfare advocates have tracked for years. Someone builds an informal rescue operation without formal nonprofit infrastructure, social media scrutiny arrives, and the whole thing collapses under the weight of accusations, donor conflict, and burnout. Whether that’s what happened here is something Berkowitz and the county clearly see differently. LAist’s reporting on the closure has more on the competing accounts.
For the birds themselves, the dispute doesn’t change their situation. They’re at the county shelter now, they’re healthy, and they need places to land.
Zoning matters here too. Riverside County has land-use rules that govern how many animals you can keep and what permits you might need before bringing home a flock. The Riverside County Planning Department has the specifics. It’s not glamorous research, but it’s the kind of thing that keeps a well-intentioned adoption from becoming a code enforcement complaint six months later.
Berkowitz built something in Anza that lasted long enough to save a lot of birds. Whether he got the ending right or the county did, the 480 ducks waiting at San Jacinto Valley Animal Campus don’t know the difference.