Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer released a damning report on the deplorable conditions and rampant mismanagement at Animal Care and Control, the city's major animal shelter system. In particular, he claims AC&C "all but abandoned their operational responsibilities" after Hurricane Sandy, not doing any intakes, providing few resources for rescuers, and not performing any field operations. “AC&C is failing to provide humane conditions for the animals in its care," he said. "It is increasingly failing in its fundamental responsibility to place animals in loving homes. And it is failing to generate additional revenues and raise sufficient outside funds that would put the agency on stronger financial ground. We need fundamental reform and the time to start is now.” Check out the full report below.
AC&C called Stringer's accusations "outrageous," pointing to the fact that adoptions at the shelters have doubled over the last 10 years while the euthanasia rate has plummeted by two-thirds as proof that they're working fine. But Stringer says those figures are completely misleading because most of the animals leave the shelter with rescue groups that are often saddled with large medical bills.
“How do you not think there is a problem when you go through 11 executive directors and now are searching for the 12th,” Stringer told The Daily News. “There is no medical director. Animals die on operating tables. They are put in cages and treated like they are file cabinets.” Among the horrible stories in the report are these two:
In June, Cocoa, a healthy female dog, died on the operating table at an AC&C shelter when the surgical team failed to give her oxygen during a routine operation, according to AC&C documents and an independent necropsy.
In August, rescue group Stray from the Heart pulled a pit bull named Lacey from an AC&C shelter. It first appeared that Lacey had kennel cough, but her condition turned out to be pneumonia and required $5,000 worth of veterinary care—an all-too-common tale as AC&C routinely foists sick animals on private rescuers.
“For many years, volunteers and rescuers have been fighting in silence for the homeless animals who suffer under AC&C's broken shelter system,” said Jeff Latzer, co-founder of Adopt NY, an umbrella group of some 45 rescue groups, in a statement. “This is a broken system that even failed New Yorkers and their animals during and after Superstorm Sandy. We all know that New York City can and should do better by its animals, and Mr. Stringer's report is the light that we have all been waiting for. For the first time, the public can see a full, uncensored history of the decades of failed policies and institutional decay that has made New York City a pariah in animal welfare. Most importantly, Mr. Stringer provides a progressive blueprint of reform that if followed, will finally pull this city's shelter system out of the dark ages.”
As for how to reform the organization, the report recommends that AC&C be restructured into an independent not-for-profit modeled after the Central Park Conservancy; increase revenue by transferring dog licensing enforcement toward funding shelter operations; and full service shelters in the Bronx and Queens. “From the second these animals arrive at the shelter, the clock is ticking,” Latzer told the News. “The more time you spend inside AC&C, the more you see how these animals need help.”
Update: Here's the link to Stringer's petition to reform the AC&C.
