NYC ACC Killed 264 Cats and 382 Dogs in the First Quarter of 2024
Though ACC is taking in fewer cats and dogs, its live release rate has not improved.
The Scoop New York is a newsletter dedicated to companion animals and the New Yorkers who care for them, from Buffalo to Brooklyn. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were nonetheless exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s July 19, 2024. This is The Weekly Poop.
This week, The Scoop New York analyzed NYC ACC data from the first quarter of 2024. What the numbers show, more than anything, is the city’s kill pound system picking up where it left off last year.
The chart at the top of this post shows that, based on raw numbers, ACC is killing fewer cats and dogs, on average, than in 2023. Last year, ACC killed a combined average of 270 cats and dogs per month, compared to a combined average of 215 a month in the first quarter of 2024.
At the same time, ACC admitted a combined average of 1,011 cats and dogs per month from January through March of this year, compared to an average of 1,201 a month through 2023.
Last year, the combined live release rate for cats and dogs was 78 percent, which equals the average combined release rate for the first quarter of 2024.
As TSNY reported last spring, while ACC has claimed a number of “capacity” crises since the pandemic, intakes dropped nearly 40 percent from 2019 to 2020, and declined by more than half from 2014 to 2023.
Still, the number of cats and dogs put to death by ACC has risen every year since 2020. Though it isn’t processing nearly the number of cats and dogs as it was before the 2020 plunge, ACC’s live release rate is declining.
In 2019, 86 percent of cats and dogs made it out of ACC alive — eight percentage points higher than the combined live release rate so far in 2024.
As shown above, in February ACC killed between three and four of every 10 dogs surrendered. In January, nearly two of every 10 cats were put to death.
In other words, ACC continues to take in fewer cats and dogs than before COVID, while killing more of them.
If Council Member Schulman et al. are still waiting for their moment to exercise their oversight muscles, any time now would be good.
Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
NYC ACC is looking for short-term fosters for dogs en route to its new Queens facility, now scheduled to open July 30.
Here’s another story about the NYC ACC capacity “crisis” that overlooks the system’s markedly reduced intake numbers and the $1B+ contract ACC signed with the city just five years ago.
The Ulster County SPCA is caring for over 200 animals and, with no help from Ulster County, is running out of food.
Adoptables: “Hunky” Handsome (plus lots of kittens, cats and rabbits) in Babylon; Dewey and Lewey in Westchester.
Pairing cats with businesses that need them, Hard Hat Cats is saving lives in NYC.
The Manhattan building that once housed Bideawee has changed hands for the first time in 150 years.
The Times has a story package on how the 1 percent are doing their damnedest to gentrify veterinary care.
Liev Schreiber’s home in the Hamptons doubles as a wildlife rehab center.
NYC has the eighth best dog parks in the country, according to something called LawnStarter.
Food recalls
The FDA issued no new pet food recalls this week. Check here for info on earlier recalls.