NYC ACC Killed 1,315 Cats and 1,644 Dogs in 2024
New York City's "animal care centers" have destroyed nearly 34,000 adoptable cats and dogs since 2015.
Animal Care Centers of New York City exterminated 2,959 cats and dogs in 2024, according to NYC ACC data.
NYC ACC killed 1,315 cats last year, and 1,644 dogs — virtually all of them healthy and adoptable when they entered the city’s kill pound system.
ACC killed 34,287 cats and dogs combined from 2015 through 2024, according to system data.
The number of cats and dogs killed by ACC declined in 2024 for the first time since 2020, the first year of the COVID pandemic.
However, last year’s live release rate (the percentage of animals who make it out alive) was unchanged from 2023, when ACC exterminated more than two out of every 10 cats and dogs in the system.
The 10-year average live release rate from 2015 to 2024 was 85 percent for cats and 78 percent for dogs, for an average combined rate of 82 percent.
In a well-run shelter, about 1 percent of animal intakes are euthanized for humane reasons. By contrast, in an average post-pandemic year ACC kills between 20 and 30 percent of cats and dogs admitted to the system.
Almost all cats and dogs killed by ACC are in good health when they enter the pound system, but ACC falsely categorizes virtually all not-live outcomes as “euthanasia,” rather than the elective killings they are.
Counting every cat and dog admitted last year, ACC killed 15 percent of cats and 30 percent of dogs, yielding an average live release rate of 78 percent. In July ACC exterminated four of every 10 dogs unfortunate enough to find themselves in New York City’s care.
Yet ACC claimed a live release rate of 89 percent for dogs and 92 percent for cats in 2024, for an average of 91 percent — coincidentally, one point above its 90 percent target, which ACC and other kill pounds define as “no kill” regardless of the stubborn fact that 90 and 100 are different numbers.
Only by cooking the figures this way can ACC approach 90 percent, which it nevertheless routinely claims to achieve. Though its own publicly available data prove the lie for all to see, ACC’s ham-handed attempt at deception is backed by city electeds including Justin Brannan, the Queens council member currently running for comptroller, who contrary to his record markets himself as the council’s animal welfare czar.
Another apologist is Council Member Lynn Schulman, who as chair of the council health committee is supposed to hold ACC accountable for its lackadaisical incompetence but instead has taken the official position that, like a dog who only wants to please, the quasi-autonomous agency with a veritable blank check “does the best that it can.” Except in New York City a dog who only wants to please is put to death every few hours.
ACC admitted a combined average of 1,206 cats and dogs per month last year, compared to an average of 1,201 intakes a month in 2023.
As The Scoop New York reported in our 2014-2023 ACC data analysis, though the agency has claimed a number of capacity crises since the pandemic, intakes dropped nearly 40 percent from 2019 to 2020. Total intakes declined by more than half from 2015 to 2024.
As shown in the 10-year chart, annual intakes at ACC have fluctuated little since 2020. Regardless, ACC closes the system to intakes at random, usually giving New Yorkers no notice before the doors close and making no public announcement when they reopen. (Curiously, the Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare also has laryngitis when it comes to answering for NYC ACC.)
Though intakes were down sharply, the number of cats and dogs put to death by ACC rose every year from 2020 to 2023. While the system isn’t admitting nearly the number of cats and dogs as before the 2020 intake plunge, ACC’s annual live release rate is declining, dropping from 86 percent in 2019 to 78 percent in 2023 and 2024.
That means ACC is taking in fewer cats and dogs than before COVID, and killing more of them — while complaining to credulous media that its perpetual mass slaughter is the fault of New Yorkers who decided against having cats and dogs in their homes.
Now running for mayor, former Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer released a damning 2013 report recommending a complete ACC overhaul. When he was city comptroller, Stringer followed up with an ACC audit that uncovered expired medications administered to animals and vaccines stored in the same refrigerators as food, beverages, and remains.
When The Scoop New York last year asked current comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander about conducting the first ACC audit in a decade, Lander’s office sent one sentence on background and a link to ACC audits by previous comptrollers.
Current Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine is running against Justin Brannan for comptroller. As a City Council member, Levine chaired the health committee prior to Lynn Schulman. Like Schulman, Levine was more ACC lapdog than watchdog, remaining silent as then-mayor Bill de Blasio rammed through ACC’s current contract with minimal public input. Records indicate Levine never convened a council hearing related to the ACC deal, which bound New Yorkers to ACC for 34 years and $1.4 billion.
The Scoop New York will have more NYC ACC 2024 data analysis, including a report on the agency’s over-reliance on and documented abuse of cat rescues operated by New York taxpayers.