NYC ACC Killed 391 Cats and 451 Dogs in Q3 of 2024
The city kill pound exterminated 2,245 cats and dogs through the first nine months of the year.
Note: The charts in this post are dynamic and may update automatically as data are added beyond the time period analyzed in the text. Check subsequent NYC ACC data posts for the most recent data analyses.
Animal Care Centers of New York City exterminated 2,245 cats and dogs the first nine months of 2024, according to NYC ACC data.
NYC ACC killed 1,007 cats through the first three quarters of the year, and 1,238 dogs — virtually all of them healthy and adoptable when they entered the city’s kill pound system.
Last year, ACC killed a combined average of 270 cats and dogs per month, compared to a combined average of 249 a month through September of this year — up from 234 a month during the first half of 2024, and 215 per month in the first quarter.
In short, the further ACC gets into 2024, the more cats and dogs it exterminates per month.
ACC admitted a combined average of 1,229 cats and dogs per month from January through September, compared to an average of 1,201 a month in 2023.
As The Scoop New York reported in our 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 2014 to 2023.
As shown in the 10-year chart above, annual intakes at ACC have hardly fluctuated since 2020. As of the end of September, the NYC pound system was on pace to admit roughly the same number of cats and dogs as in 2023.
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The number of cats and dogs put to death by ACC, however, has risen every year since 2020. Though the system isn’t admitting nearly the number of cats and dogs as it was before the 2020 plunge, ACC’s annual live release rate is declining, dropping from 86 percent in 2019 to 78 percent in 2023.
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 — the percentage of animals who make it out alive — for cats and dogs was 78 percent during the first three quarters of 2024, matching the 2023 combined average rate.
The 86 percent 2019 live release rate — ACC’s highest since at least 2014 — was eight percentage points higher than the combined average rate this year through September. At 71 percent, July had the most abysmal live release rate of any single month during the first three quarters of 2024.
As shown above, in July ACC exterminated nearly two of every 10 cats surrendered, and more than four of every 10 dogs who entered the system.
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.