Introducing NYC ACC KILLS
NYC ACC kills. NYC ACC KILLS remembers. Published by The Scoop New York.
Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s March 28, 2025. This is The Weekly Poop.
This week, 53 weeks out from publishing our first story, The Scoop New York officially launched NYC ACC KILLS.
ACC gets a disproportionate amount of attention from The Scoop New York simply because no corporate entity in the state that isn’t a “research” lab or purpose-built slaughterhouse puts more animals to death. And because no major municipal entity in New York City gets less attention from electeds, who are happy to have cats and dogs perpetually exterminated on their collective watch so long as they don’t have to hear about it.
It is one thing to stare agape at charts and graphs that illustrate the scope of depravity at ACC and the city health department, which as ACC’s appointed minder presides over the carnage. It is another thing altogether to look into the pleading eyes of Saint, the 5-year-old pit mix who thought his family was taking him for a car ride before they dropped him at ACC, where he was exterminated after six weeks.
Or Parsley, 2 years old, who volunteers said was dumped at ACC for scratching her owner. Being a cat, she did not immediately take to her new surroundings. She also reportedly contracted an upper respiratory infection at ACC, where disease transmission among captive animals is common. Though she could have lived another 18 years, because she was sick, ACC exterminated Parsley after less than a month.
Or 2-year-old Tinsel, found on Christmas Eve, tied to a fence by a rusted chain around his neck that ACC volunteers say “had to be cut off.” The volunteers — the only source of love and companionship animals at ACC get, and only then for a few minutes a day, if that — believe shy, scared Tinsel had never known peace in his short life. Rather than keeping him safe until placing him in his forever home, ACC exterminated Tinsel after two weeks.
Know that it was extremely difficult just to choose which of these animals’ stories to single out in this post. They’re all equally gut-wrenching. There are no happy endings for any of these cats and dogs. All the more reason to call attention to their lives, and deaths.
Subscribers to NYC ACC KILLS will receive monthly posts featuring names and images (photos; volunteer-made “posters”; and short, volunteer-produced videos) of cats and dogs known to have been exterminated by ACC during that month. Atop each post will be the NYC ACC KILLS counter, updated to reflect each month’s extermination data, along with a running annual death toll.
One post for each month on the calendar. That’s it.
Volunteer posters and videos of animals who were eventually exterminated by ACC may also be found on the NYC ACC KILLS X feed and the NAK playlist on The Scoop New York’s YouTube channel.
Subscriptions to NYC ACC KILLS will always be free.
NYC ACC KILLS is in no way a definitive accounting of ACC victims. That could be a full-time job for a team of reporters. Cats are grossly underrepresented because so few of them appear on the ACC “at-risk outcomes” list, upon which — for now, at least — each memorial post is based.
I’ve been asked who I imagine would want to sign up for such a sad newsletter as NYC ACC KILLS. The truth is I have no idea. Quite possibly very few. But it’s already had an impact.
Putting the final touches on the January 2025 NAK post yesterday, I noticed ACC data reports had stopped distinguishing between cats and dogs in the fine-print summation of those victims ACC doesn’t count in its bogus live release rate. Such victims are known to advocates as “silent kills.” ACC’s February data set also lumped all silent kills, cats and dogs, into one figure, meaning the January change was not a mistake.
A flurry of email queries and social media posts followed, and by this morning the reports were back to what at NYC ACC passes for normal.
Beyond monitoring and tracking kill data month to month, NYC ACC KILLS is meant to serve as an interactive, evolving memorial to ACC victims, in one spot created for that purpose. To bear witness that these souls existed. To acknowledge their unfathomable pain and fear. To demonstrate that they mattered, not only to themselves but to the New Yorkers who fought to save them from untimely, brutal deaths at the hands of people those same New Yorkers pay to protect them.
NYC ACC kills. NYC ACC KILLS remembers.
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Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
Looks like Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan to babysit Mayor Eric Adams via state legislation is going nowhere in the state legislature.
Related: A new poll on the city’s upcoming mayoral election is good news for Andrew Cuomo and his many, many fans.
NYC comptroller candidates Mark Levine and Justin Brannan had a drama-free debate, as news outlets continue to ignore the $1.4B elephant in the race.
NYC DOH released a bird flu guide for veterinarians and is asking them to report potential cases to the city.
The Hudson Valley Animal Shelter Fund announced grants to five Hudson Valley rescues, which is necessary because Albany.
Nothing about this headline makes sense, but congrats to the magical breeder for getting over on gullible media, I guess.
Some rocket surgeon is handing out unvaxxed puppies in the Jamestown area for “free.”
A woman and her cat were reunited after the woman was carjacked on the West Side of Manhattan and the perps took off with the cat inside.
What a story: Little Snuggles is back with his person — an astounded and grateful Buffalo woman — after he disappeared 11 years ago.
“The cats have been cared for by volunteers.” Whatever that means.
Here’s an interview with the founder of Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue, a Suffolk County fosters-only org.
“[B]etween 50% to 70% of female domestic violence survivors with pets report that their abusers have threatened, harmed, or even killed their animals.” Because small men prefer easy targets.
And finally, presented without comment: this NYC ACC PSA.
Adoptables
NYC ACC is working half-time again this weekend with just one mobile adoption event, tomorrow in Manhattan. Looks like two-day weekends will return as the weather warms. ACC personnel convenience first, animal placements second. Like always.
Ellie, a 3-year-old Great Pyrenees mix, pictured above, has been returned to Columbia-Greene County Humane Society in Hudson twice for being “too affectionate,” as if that is even a thing. Read more about Ellie here, and find out how you can take her home here.
Bella, also above, is 14 — too old for a cat to be stuck in a cage surrounded by strangers. Bella would prefer to be the only pet in the house and you can make that happen by contacting SPCA Serving Erie County.
Find New York adoptables near you on Dogs in Danger and Adopt a Pet.
The Scoop New York attempts to confirm that animals are still available before we feature them in The Weekly Poop. If an animal you see here has already found a home, consider asking about other available adoptables.
Food recalls
The FDA has announced no new pet food recalls this week.
Check here for info on earlier pet food recalls.