34-Year Contract in Hand, NYC ACC Is Taking in Fewer Cats and Dogs, and Killing More of Them
Since renewing its contract with the city in 2019, ACC live releases have declined, even as system intakes have dropped sharply since the pandemic.
New York City animal control is taking in far fewer animals than before the COVID pandemic. At the same time, the percentage of cats and dogs who escape with their lives has declined every year since NYC ACC signed a new mega-contract with the city.
The Scoop New York examined 10 years of NYC ACC data, including the number of cats and dogs killed by ACC, the number of cats and dogs that entered the pound system, and the resulting live release rates.
A word about the pound system and its data: NYC ACC is actually a non-profit paid by city taxpayers, though it is historically and by design not responsive to public input. Nor does the city health department, which putatively oversees ACC, show much interest in listening to animal welfare advocates concerning facility conditions.
In 2019, when Bill de Blasio was mayor, the city renewed its contract with ACC for 34 years and $1.4 billion. There was no City Council vote. No public input was solicited.
In its body count, ACC differentiates between cats and dogs surrendered by owners vs. non-owner intakes, deleting owner intakes from the total number killed. This allows the system to artificially lower its kill totals and claim a higher release rate than it otherwise could. The Scoop New York makes no such distinction. We counted all cats and dogs known to have entered the system, and all those reported to have died in ACC’s care. We did not include cats and dogs that ACC reportedly lost track of.
A few things about the data stand out. First, according to NYC ACC, the pound is killing fewer cats and dogs than it was 10 years ago. Overall killings — not relative to intakes — are down 54 percent since 2014.
That said, the number of cats and dogs killed by ACC has risen every year since 2020, when killings hit their lowest point of the past decade. ACC, whose leaders claim the system is “no kill” except when they don’t, put to death 1,509 cats and 1,726 dogs in 2023.
Intakes are also down sharply. While the system has claimed a number of “capacity” crises since the pandemic, intake figures — the number of cats and dogs logged into ACC — dropped nearly 40 percent from 2019 to 2020, and 52 percent from 2014 to 2023.
Though it isn’t processing nearly the number of cats and dogs since the 2020 plunge, ACC’s live release rate is declining.
It would be reasonable to expect the ACC live release rate to improve as the number of intakes declines. But the combined live release rate — the percentage of cats and dogs who make it out alive, no matter who brought them in — has dropped or remained flat every year since 2019.
That isn’t the only metric that has worsened since the new contract took effect. In addition to a stagnant combined live release rate, the release rate for dogs has declined every year since 2019. and hit a 10-year low in 2023, when fewer than three in four dogs lived to walk away. The live release rate for cats declined by 5 percentage points from 2019 to 2023. ACC killed about one in five cats who entered the pound last year.
Not once in 10 years did the ACC combined live release rate approach 90 percent — the faux threshold that kill pound operators set so they could (speciously) call themselves “no kill.”
“The numbers are horrific. And they can’t get away with blaming the public, because intakes are down. It means the problem lies solely with the pound’s managers, who are failing at every level.”
“The numbers are horrific,” says Andrew Weprin, a longtime no-kill advocate who lives in Manhattan. “And they can’t get away with blaming the public, because intakes are down. It means the problem lies solely with the pound’s managers, who are failing at every level.”
With the mayor and City Council uninterested in addressing ACC dysfunction, Weprin says advocates’ “only hope” is state legislation, such as the Shelter Animal Rescue Act, which has bipartisan support but is currently stalled in Albany.
Weprin notes that, with the 34-year contract, “There is no way to simply fire [ACC management and staff], which is what they deserve.”
We sent ACC a list of questions about pound system data. We’ll update this story if we hear back.
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Update May 22, 2024: NYC ACC spokesperson Katy Hansen sent the following statement:
In 2020 we reached our highest ever placement rate for dogs at 94 [percent]. Since then, our dog placement rate has been in decline. In 2023 we had a placement rate for dogs of 89 [percent], the lowest since 2016. And, while intake is still below 2019 levels, the number of dogs being adopted or placed with rescue is not keeping up. We have the highest in-shelter population of dogs in recent history. For instance, today we have 52 dogs living in pop-up crates across all 3 shelters. Shelters across the nation are seeing a significant decline in adoptions, with some suggesting that economic pressures are preventing people from committing to a pet.