The Scoop New York is a website and newsletter covering the movement for a true no-kill New York, from BUF to BK. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
The Scoop New York is the only news outlet to consider newsworthy taxpayer-funded cruelty toward homeless companion animals, as well as decades of officials’ deliberate abuse — psychological, physical and financial — of the New Yorkers who care about them.
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Animal Care Centers of New York City exterminated 3,202 cats and dogs in 2025, according to NYC ACC data.
That figure reflects an average of one cat or dog put to death at ACC about every three hours. Non-stop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
NYC ACC killed 1,508 cats last year, and 1,694 dogs — virtually all of them healthy and adoptable when they entered the kill pound system.
ACC exterminated 31,830 cats and dogs combined from 2016 through 2025, according to system data.
The number of cats and dogs killed by ACC dipped in 2024 for the first time since 2020. The decline was short-lived: Last year’s total marked an 8 percent increase in combined cat and dog killings compared to 2024.
Worse, 2025 was the second deadliest post-pandemic year for cats and dogs at NYC ACC, with just 33 fewer victims than the combined total from 2023.
At 79 percent, however, last year’s combined live release rate — the percentage of cats and dogs who make it out alive — was virtually unchanged from 2024, which in turn had the same combined rate (78 percent) as 2023.
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.
Though most cats and dogs killed by ACC are in good health upon intake, ACC falsely and purposely categorizes virtually all not-live outcomes as “euthanasia,” rather than the elective killings — i.e. exterminations — they are.
Counting every animal admitted last year, ACC exterminated 15 percent of cats and 28 percent of dogs.
Annual live release rates reveal that since 2020, ACC has consistently killed between one and two cats, and two to three dogs, of every 10 admitted, regardless of intake fluctuations.
There are exceptions. For instance, for three non-consecutive months last year — July, October and December — ACC exterminated three to four of every 10 dogs who came in the door.
ACC admitted a significantly higher number of cats and dogs before COVID than in the years since. Yet rather than improve, post-pandemic live release rates have worsened. This means that, since COVID, ACC is taking in fewer cats and dogs while killing more of them.
This is a choice.
Years ago, American kill pounds decided to anoint themselves “no kill” if their live release rates met or exceeded 90 percent. This lie is propagated by high-profile high-dollar non-profits including Best Friends Animal Society, which raises millions of dollars annually to “save them all” while never managing to achieve its stated goal — which, again, at 90 percent is not “all.”
As the biggest shelter in the country, it would not do for ACC — and, by extension, its chaperones at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene — to post actual ACC live release rates.
Instead, post-COVID data indicate that ACC and DOH have settled on a percentage of cats and dogs for “live outcomes,” with the rest to be exterminated. Elective exterminations are propagandized as “end-of-life services,” or proffered as a remedy for treatable illness or “behavior” issues — which almost always means an animal is reacting normally to hellish conditions at ACC by exhibiting fear for their lives.
For the coup de grâce, ACC excludes a large percentage of exterminated cats and dogs — many of them never offered for adoption at all — from its “euthanasia” count. Because the only way ACC approaches the arbitrary 90 percent live release rate is to absolve itself of responsibility for caring for and rehoming half its victims, and cook the books accordingly.
Over the past few months, The Scoop New York queried ACC, DOH, City Council “animal welfare caucus” frontman Harvey Epstein, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani concerning discretionary killings at ACC, and whether they intend to intervene. There were no replies.
OFFICIALS RESPONSIBLE FOR NYC ACC OVERSIGHT
Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Contact form
City Council Speaker Julie Menin: 212-788-7210; Email
Comptroller Mark Levine: 212-669-3916; Contact forms
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams: 212-669-7250; Email
City Council members: Lookup
Borough presidents: BX; BK; MN; SI; QS
NYC DOH Commissioner Alister Martin: 311; Contact form
