When I became the president and chief executive officer of the ASPCA in 2003, New York City's homeless animals had little chance of making it out of the public animal shelters alive. At that time, only 26 percent of dogs and cats in the city's shelter system were adopted. The rest were euthanized.
Fast-forward eight years -- now, 73 percent of the animals that end up in the city's shelter system are adopted. While that is a phenomenal increase in the rate of animals saved, it still isn't good enough.
The ASPCA has implemented numerous programs to save the city's animals, and these programs are working. For example, since a majority of the dogs that end up in the city's shelter system are pit bulls, we started "Operation Pit." As part of Operation Pit, we provide free spay/neuter surgeries to pit bulls in New York City and continuing veterinary care for them as well.
We have awarded grants of more than seven million dollars to the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals, which is a coalition of more than 150 animal rescue groups and shelters that are working to end the killing of the city's homeless animals.
The ASPCA is in all five boroughs every single day with our mobile clinics, trying to save animals by providing free and low-cost spay/neuter surgeries to more than 30,000 cats and dogs every year. We even opened a stationary clinic in Ridgewood, Queens this past spring for the same purpose that serves the animal rescue community.
But one of the major obstacles to our efforts to save the city's homeless animals is that the city cuts the budget of the city's Animal Care & Control (city shelter system) virtually every year. That has never been acceptable to us or to anyone who loves and respects animals. Thus, we have been working behind the scenes to get the city to increase funding of its animal shelter system.
I am very pleased that, after intense lobbying by the ASPCA, the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals, and Animal Care & Control, the city has finally agreed to allocate more funds to help homeless animals.
Mayor Bloomberg and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn have agreed to raise funding levels so that by July 2014 the annual budget for Animal Care & Control will exceed $12 million -- a 77 percent increase over the current budget. The influx of funds will start this year with an additional $1 million being granted to the City's shelter system. Among other things, this money will be used to hire additional veterinarians and veterinary technicians who are desperately needed to work in the shelters.
In conjunction with the funding increases, Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn have announced their support for New York City Intro. 655 sponsored by Council Member Jessica Lappin. If passed, this bill, which the ASPCA also supports, will make a tremendous difference in the lives of homeless animals.
For example, receiving facilities located in Queens and the Bronx would have to be open seven days a week to accept stray dogs and cats. Currently, they are only open one and two days a week, respectively. In addition, the city would resume its pickups of stray, injured or abandoned dogs and cats seven days a week; owned, free-roaming cats would have to be spayed or neutered; and the Department of Health would have to issue rules regarding trap-neuter-return.
The additional services that would be provided if Intro. 655 passes, along with the influx of funds from the city, will help decrease the suffering of homeless animals. Nevertheless, a few detractors are upset because the city did not agree to build animal shelters in Queens and in the Bronx. Let me be clear -- of course, I want the city to build animal shelters in the boroughs that currently do not have them. But the reality is that the city does not have to do this based on a recent appellate court's ruling (in re Stray from the Heart, Inc. v. Dep't of Health and Mental Hygiene of the City of New York, April 19, 2011) that a rescue group did not have standing to challenge the City's failure to open animal shelters in Queens and in the Bronx.
Given the appellate court's decision, I believe the agreement we brokered with the city has the animals' best interests at heart for the immediate future. Through our advocacy, we obtained a commitment of millions of dollars to fund programs that had been cut. We got powerful lawmakers to support the establishment of trap, neuter and return of feral cats as the accepted practice in NYC. We secured the Department of Health's commitment to working to increase the number of licensed dogs in New York City, which will result in more money to fund spay and neuter operations. And, injured animals that were previously wandering the streets because no one was available to pick them up will now be rescued.
I urge New Yorkers to contact their Council Members to support Intro. 655 and to consider volunteering and/or adopting a pet from Animal Care & Control (www.nycacc.org).
As a veterinarian for the Center for Animal Care and Control several years ago, I was told by the director of the facility that many of the alleged "rescue" groups were in reality hoarders, who were able to tap into the "Mayor's Alliance" by simply forming a non-profit corporation as a "rescue group". These rescues are typically not transparent (you will never see where they really keep the animals), and they drain the funds for their own benefit.
Mr. Sayres, the ASPCA has very emotional media ads, and collects a significant amount of money in donations. I ask you, why isn't the ASPCA enforcing the abuses of the Carriage Horses that are documented all year long, but most notably in the summer and winter? Why, when I have abuse cases in my practices, provided medical records, photos, and even kept carcasses of animals that have died horrific deaths, are your officers unable to pursue any of these cases? Mr. Sayres, what are you, and the ASPCA, ACTUALLY DOING to really help animals in this city? Not as much as you would make people think, I am afraid.
John G. Hynes, DVM
USDA Accredited Veterinarian, NY and NJ
But the real tragedy in all of this is to repeal the law that mandated shelters in the Bronx and Queens. When the bill passed in 2000, there was a need then – and there is a need now.
Christine Quinn killed the term limits law in 2008 and now she wants to kill this one simply because she can. . She believes she can rewrite history and the rubber stamp Council is surely to go along with her. She calls people who disagree with her on such principles “naïve ideologues.”
At the recent No Kill conference in Washington, DC, I was impressed to hear about many communities around the country who have been successful in achieving their goals of No Kill. They include Nevada Humane, Austin, TX; Marquette, MI; Charlottesville; and even New Zealand. But NYC continues to fail.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has made an interesting proposal that deserves consideration. This is a link to the article. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-stringer/protecting-new-yorks-anim_b_928513.html
Elizabeth Forel
NYC
And please, referring to "funding increases", is inaccurate and disingenuous. As Mr. Sayres points out, the NYC Animal Care and Control budget has been cut, for the past several years, so these are hardly "funding increases", but rather restoration of some monies, previously removed from AC&C's budget.
I hope the money will start going to Animal Care & Control of New York City immediately, because healthy animals die every day in the City shelters for lack of funds.
You, of all people, know why New Yorkers who care about animals are skeptical, furious, and disappointed constantly by what goes on in our City shelters. When detractors call attention to something that is wrong with the way New York City animals are treated, the ASPCA, which is in New York City, should be grateful, not critical, since it is in the interest of the ASPCA to help animals. Yes, New Yorkers are aware of all the good the ASPCA does locally and nationally. Nevertheless, what is wrong, is wrong. The fact that both the Bronx and Queens do not, and will not, have an animal shelter even by 2014, is pathetic at best, and reprehensible at worst, based on the high human population in those boroughs. It is because they don't that animals continue to die! This latest agreement is one more betrayal of the City's animals. It's been made to look good because there are some progressive elements in it. But, for the most part, it's an overall, much needed, temporary, relief from the current anguish. That's not enough for the price the animals in the Bronx and Queens will have to pay.
Signed, a detractor.