NYC ACC Killed 291 Cats and 390 Dogs in Q1 of 2025
The city kill pound system barely improved upon last year's live release rates — the worst since COVID.
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.
Animal Care Centers of New York City exterminated 681 cats and dogs the first three months of 2025, according to NYC ACC data.
The average rate of ACC cat and dog killings combined through the first quarter was essentially unchanged from 2024’s annual average rate, which tied 2023 as the worst since COVID.
NYC ACC killed 291 cats through March, and 390 dogs, compared to 264 cats and 382 dogs exterminated by ACC during the first quarter of 2024.
In 2024, ACC killed a combined average of 247 cats and dogs per month, compared to a combined average of 227 a month through March of this year.
First quarter average live release rates — the percentage of animals who make it out alive — were 86 percent for cats and 72 percent for dogs. In the first quarter of 2024, average live release rates were 85 percent for cats and 69 percent for dogs.
Virtually all cats and dogs put to death by ACC are healthy and adoptable when they enter the city’s kill pound system.
ACC admitted an average of 681 cats and 468 dogs per month from January through March, compared to an average of 591 cats and 420 dogs a month in the first quarter of 2024.
As The Scoop New York reported in our most recent 10-year 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, and declined by more than half from 2015 to 2024.
As shown in the 10-year chart above, ACC annual intakes have barely moved since 2020. As of the end of March, the NYC pound system was on pace to admit about 5 percent fewer cats and dogs than in 2024.
The raw number of cats and dogs put to death by ACC dropped last year after three consecutive years of increases. Yet the percentage of animals killed did not improve.
Though the system isn’t admitting nearly the number of cats and dogs as before the 2020 plunge, ACC’s annual combined average live release rate has dropped and stagnated post-COVID, declining from 86 percent in 2019 to 78 percent in 2023, where it remained in 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 have allegedly lost interest en masse in having cats and dogs in their homes.
ACC’s combined average live release rate for cats and dogs was 79 percent during the first quarter of 2025, one point higher than the 2024 combined average rate, and one point higher than the combined average rate through the first quarter of last year. At 78 percent, January had the worst live release rate of any single month during the first quarter of 2025.
As shown above, in January ACC exterminated nearly two of every 10 cats surrendered. During each month of the quarter, almost three in 10 dogs who entered the system were selected for extermination.
Images of ACC’s canine and feline victims, along with details on how and why they were taken to the pound, may be found on NYC ACC KILLS. Published by The Scoop New York, NYC ACC KILLS is an evolving, interactive memorial to adoptable cats and dogs exterminated by New York City.
NYC ACC operates under the aegis of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which is controlled by Mayor Eric Adams and putatively overseen by the New York City Council health committee. The current acting health department commissioner is Michelle Morse. The current chair of the City Council health committee is Lynn Schulman.