The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a plan to increase the value of its spay and neuter vouchers for one year, but left out rabbits and other key areas of coverage, prompting concern from animal advocates who said the city missed a critical opportunity.

The adopted plan follows the narrower recommendation from the Arts, Parks, Libraries, and Community Enrichment Committee, which makes the sterilization procedures free for eligible dog and cat owners using city vouchers.

“We know that when pet care becomes unaffordable, it’s working-class families and animals who suffer,” Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who introduced the original motion, said in a statement after the meeting. “This voucher program is a step toward making sure every pet — and every person who loves them – has access to basic care.”

She added: “There’s still more work to do to expand access, but this is a major win for our communities and our animals.”

A broader version — backed by animal welfare groups and the Council’s Budget and Finance Committee – would have also raised reimbursements for rabbits and expanded coverage to mobile and onsite clinics serving city shelters. It also would have increased support for the Citywide Cat Program, which provides vouchers and trapping permits to help spay and neuter stray and feral cats.

Animal advocates said the Council’s decision leaves behind one of the city’s most vulnerable and fast-reproducing populations.

“The cost of not doing this is tremendous for rabbits, and I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that thousands of rabbits are going to die because of this vote,” said Michelle Kelly, founder of Los Angeles Rabbit Foundation.

Kelly said rabbit sterilization has long been overlooked in city programs, even as shelters and rescue groups report rising numbers of abandoned or surrendered rabbits.

Unlike cats and dogs — whose spay and neuter surgeries typically cost around $150 to $300 — rabbit procedures are significantly more expensive, often ranging between $500 and $1,000. Few veterinarians are willing to accept the city’s outdated $125 voucher rate for rabbits, she said.

“You can call around all over and no clinic will take those $125 vouchers because they’re losing money on them,” she said.

That’s left many low-income residents unable to afford sterilization, Kelly said, often leading to illegal dumping of unaltered rabbits in parks and neighborhoods.

“Basically a pair of rabbits and their babies can produce up to 900 rabbits in one year… in seven years one rabbit and her babies would produce 64 billion rabbits,” she said. “ It’s absolutely, completely illogical from a financial point of view to leave rabbits out.”

City animal welfare officials also expressed disappointment in the Council’s decision to exclude mobile clinics, onsite providers, and the Citywide Cat Program — components they said are crucial for reducing shelter crowding and improving outcomes for adopted animals.

“ Today was a bit of a blindside, to be honest,” said Jana Brennan, program manager for Michelson Center for Public Policy’s Spay and Neuter Initiative. “Including those (coverage areas) is incredibly important for the long-term investment in spay and neuter in Los Angeles. So we were very disappointed to learn that that had shifted back to that previous recommendation.”

While the revised plan maintains higher voucher rates for $120 for cats and $195 for dogs, it excludes key providers such as onsite clinics at city shelters, which perform high-volume spay and neuter surgeries for shelter animals.

“ So unfortunately, without the increase for the onsite providers, this is really going to mean that the adopted animals are going to be subject to long wait times inside the shelter before they’ll be released to their adopted homes, and that less of these providers will be doing those procedures because they don’t receive the voucher for those,” Brennan said.

Brennan added that with rising vet costs and economic pressures on families, “it’s truly never been more critical” to invest in affordable spay and neuter services across the board.

Other advocates voiced similar frustrations, arguing that the scaled-back plan fails to address the scale of the city’s overcrowding crisis.

What the L.A. City Council did today falls far short of what’s needed to end the overpopulation crisis of dogs and cats once and for all — and it completely ignored the plight of rabbits,” said Jeffrey Mausner, co-founder of the Global Anti-Dog Meat Coalition. “Failing to adequately fund spay and neuter programs is the very definition of being penny wise and “pound” foolish. In the long run, this short-sighted approach will cost the City far more — in both taxpayer dollars and animal suffering.”

Advocates said they now plan to push city leaders to revisit the issue.

“For us and all the organizations on the ground, we’re going to have to work really closely with elected officials and ensure that we’re mobilizing to address this,” Brennan said, “and trying to find other funding opportunities or other breaks for organizations that are on the ground doing this work because, it’s simply not sustainable for them to do at the current voucher rate.”