NYC Was Supposed To Be A "No Kill" City By 2015. What Happened?

Decades of mayoral and City Council neglect have lead to the early deaths of thousands of adoptable dogs and cats in NYC. It doesn't have to be this way.

This story, by TSNY Editor and Publisher Brad Aaron, originally appeared on Gothamist on June 17, 2019. We’re republishing it since it’s a definitive example of the type and style of coverage TSNY will provide, and because, unfortunately, the story is as relevant today as it was five years ago.

Photo: Brad Aaron

On Tuesday, the City Council will hold a hearing* on a package of bills concerning the care and treatment of animals. The 12 bills on tomorrow’s docket are comprehensive in scope, calling for everything from a ban on wild bird trafficking to the establishment of a department of animal welfare.

Several of the bills have bipartisan support, and if you ask animal welfare advocates, who have agitated for some of these measures for decades, they’ll tell you tomorrow has been a long time coming.

“It’s unheard of to have 12 animal bills at one hearing,” says Marilyn Galfin. “It’s a very exciting time.”

Galfin and her partner Craig Seeman are the team behind Voices for Shelter Animals, an organization founded to encourage the city’s shelter system, which is controlled by the Department of Health, to follow a no-kill model in line with the most successful shelters in the U.S.—a goal NYC was supposed to have reached over a decade ago.

The term “no kill” seems self-explanatory. But like a certain commandment—or, say, “Vision Zero”—its meaning is often diluted for the sake of convenience. Some shelters and advocacy groups have settled on a live release rate of 90 percent as the no-kill threshold. (A shelter’s live release rate is the percentage of animals that make it out alive.) The California-based No Kill Advocacy Center [NKAC] has a more literal interpretation, defining no kill as saving every animal that is not “irremediably suffering,” which the NKAC describes as “a poor or grave prognosis for being able to live without severe, unremitting physical pain.”

“No kill is not a percentage. You can quote any number you want, but if they are killing animals that are not irremediably suffering, they are not no kill."

“Our philosophy is you count all the noses coming in, and you count all the noses going out,” says NKAC founder Nathan Winograd, whose CV includes leading the Tompkins County, New York, shelter to no-kill status in 2001. “You don’t exclude anybody.”

“No kill is not a percentage,” Seeman adds. “You can quote any number you want, but if they are killing animals that are not irremediably suffering, they are not no kill."

Suffice to say, the NYC shelter system does not meet the NKAC no-kill standard. Among the bills now pending before city lawmakers, Intro 1502 would require the DOH to provide detailed data on every incident of animal euthanasia; Intro 1502 would also create a task force, to include animal welfare advocates, to advise the shelter on best practices.

Perhaps above all, Galfin and Seeman are anxious to see the passage of Intro 1478, the animal welfare department bill. Among other initiatives, the new department would take over the shelter system from the DOH, which according to just about every advocate Gothamist spoke to for this story has presided over the senseless and preventable deaths of thousands of adoptable cats and dogs.

Since its founding in 1995, the history of the entity currently known as Animal Care Centers of NYC is, as Seeman calls it, “a series of nightmares.” In 2013, Scott Stringer, who was then Manhattan borough president, released a report that summarized 18 years of political scheming, legal maneuvering, buck-passing, incompetence, and negligence, all at the expense of animals entrusted to ACC’s care. The report criticized the DOH and, in turn, former mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, for perpetually under-funding ACC, as well as failing to remedy—and at times exploiting—a bureaucratic tangle that makes it almost impossible for the agency to succeed.

Though it functions as a city agency, ACC is actually a non-profit created by the city and is under contract to DOH for its services. “The root of the problem,” read Stringer’s report, “is structural.” The report said the DOH is “not sufficiently focused on animal welfare” and allows “little room for independent leadership or innovation” at ACC.

The result, Stringer found, is that dogs and cats who land at ACC are forced to endure “deplorable conditions.” During Stringer’s investigation, the ASPCA adoption center reported “a nearly 100 percent rate of infection,” typically in the form of a preventable upper respiratory ailment, among the animals it received from ACC.

In 2015, Comptroller Stringer issued another damning report, which uncovered expired medications administered to animals at ACC, along with vaccines stored in the same refrigerators as food, beverages, and remains.

Illness endangers animals at ACC in more ways than one, because an animal who develops even a minor health issue can easily end up on what advocates call “death row.”

Photo: Brad Aaron

Three times a week, ACC releases lists of cats and dogs it has classified as “at risk for euthanasia.” Some have treatable illnesses they didn’t have when they entered the shelter; others have been judged by ACC as “aggressive.” Animals posted on Tuesday evenings are scheduled to die that Thursday at noon. Those on the Thursday night list have until noon on Saturday to be saved by an independent rescue group or adopted by an individual. Cats and dogs that are not rescued or adopted on the Saturday list are destroyed at 12:00 p.m. Tuesday.

“The lists are published for the rescue groups, mostly,” says Dr. Deborah Tanzer, a Manhattan psychologist and longtime animal advocate who distributes ACC at-risk lists via a homegrown email network. “The rescue groups are more than stressed and overwhelmed.” ACC’s over-dependence on the groups was noted in Stringer’s 2013 report.

ACC transfers animals only to rescue groups that are sanctioned as “New Hope partners” by the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, a separate non-profit that, despite its name, is not connected to the Mayor’s Office. According to Stringer, the Alliance received a $15 million grant to make the city no kill by 2008. When that didn’t happen, the group reset the target year to 2015.

“If you are in their partnership, you can pull an animal,” says Seeman. “But if you’re a rescue—a qualified, not-for-profit rescue—and you’re not part of their partnership program, if you come in and say ‘We have expertise and we can handle these three dogs’ behavioral issues,’ they will turn down the rescue and they will end up killing the dogs.” Even the NYPD can’t wrest an animal from ACC’s death row.

Members of the public who stumble upon the “at-risk” list, which ACC only randomly publishes on its own Twitter feed, and want to adopt a dog or cat are likely to find themselves racing the clock.

“Individuals have terrible trouble trying to help save an animal,” says Tanzer. “ACC often doesn’t answer the phone, doesn’t get back to people.”

Gothamist contacted ACC and the Mayor’s Alliance for this story. ACC accepted a list of questions via email, then sent us a 700-word statement saying the agency is “proud to be serving [eight] million New Yorkers with a variety of resources including field rescue, pet reunification services, owner-surrender prevention and counseling, community pets programs, humane education for young people and of course adoption,” but did not answer our questions directly.

The Alliance stopped communicating with us before hearing our questions. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s office also declined our interview requests.

It’s certainly true that, compared to the early 2000s, when the euthanasia rate was reportedly as high as 74 percent, ACC has made significant progress: the agency reported a 92.5 percent live release rate for 2018. In April the Alliance went so far as to claim it had “accomplished [its] mission to make NYC a no-kill city.”

It’s also true that in 2018, ACC put 3,194 dogs and cats to death, and reported that an additional 197 animals died, or were “lost,” while in the shelter’s care. According to its own data sets, ACC’s live release rate calculation excludes the deaths of owner-surrendered dogs and cats that are categorized as “unhealthy and untreatable.” Factor in those animals -- which advocates say include those killed for such behaviors as mouthing on their leashes, jumping, and cowering in fear -- and last year’s live release rate was roughly 80 percent for dogs and 89 percent for cats.

That’s still a vast improvement, but it doesn’t meet even the loosest standard for no kill. Further muddying the waters, before the Alliance declared mission accomplished, an ACC spokesperson told QNS.com, “There is actually no such a thing as a no-kill shelter.”

Yet according to the NKAC, which analyzes raw data from shelters, there are dozens of towns, cities, and counties—from Austin, Texas to Muncie, Indiana—that have live release rates of 98 percent or higher for dogs and/or cats. Winograd says all those systems, like ACC, are “open intake,” meaning they can’t turn animals away. Some have a higher intake rate per capita than ACC. All, of course, have a smaller pool of potential permanent homes for animals.

Says Winograd: “How much sense does it make that a dog with parvo virus will be saved in Austin, but a dog with the exact same condition will be killed in New York City, and New York City can call itself no kill? That’s not honest, and that’s going to cause people to conclude that no kill is not possible, when it very much is possible.”

It remains to be seen whether a department of animal welfare, if established, is the key to finally reforming ACC. When Gothamist spoke with Council Member Justin Brannan, Intro 1478’s primary sponsor, he downplayed the notion, as an aide on the call expounded on ACC’s laudable live release rate.

Still, for Galfin, Seeman, and other advocates, getting a seat at the table would be a major win.

“We want that any animal that comes into that shelter gets the care, gets the understanding, gets the funding,” says Galfin. “Nobody can tell me the city of New York can’t be doing better by these animals.”

*Refers to the NYC council hearing held on June 18, 2019. TSNY will in the coming weeks have an update on the bills on that hearing’s docket. — Ed.