The New York Times, June 6, 2002 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comptroller Criticizes New York City's Animal Shelters By CARLA BARANAUCKAS A sharp difference of opinion has emerged between two New York City agencies on whether animals are properly cared for at shelters under contract to the city. An 88-page audit report, released today by City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr.'s office, says that the Center for Animal Care and Control, a nonprofit corporation created by the city to provide animal seizure and shelter, "does not provide humane conditions for all of the animals in its shelters and has not made aggressive efforts to increase adoptions of homeless animals." But the Department of Health, which has contracted with the center since Jan. 1, 1995, released a statement saying that in more than 1,200 inspections between January 1995 and April 2002, inspectors "did not observe any evidence of the serious deficiencies." The center's contract is up for renewal in July. And the center released a statement saying: "This is not an audit; it's a political agenda. C.A.C.C. fully rejects the comptroller's findings. By interviewing only terminated employees and political activists, the comptroller's office has failed to meet its charter-mandated requirements under federal auditing standards to produce an objective assessment of our organization and our contract." The Center for Animal Care and Control was created by the city after the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which had handled animal control in the city for a century, asked in 1993 to be relieved of the job, in part because society officials said the budget did not allow it to provide animal care beyond killing about 40,000 animals a year. When the center took over, animal welfare advocates expressed skepticism that much would change. Without aggressive spay and neuter programs, they said, the population of unwanted dogs and cats would not be reduced. In 2000, more than 41,000 animals - or 67.7 percent of those that were taken in to the shelter - were put to death. In 2000, the center had a budget of $8.3 million from the Department of Health. The comptroller's report, which is based on interviews with former employees and rescue workers and 15 visits to the shelters from Jan. 1, 1999, to June 30, 2001, faults the Center for Animal Care and Control in three areas: the conditions under which animals are sheltered, mistreatment of animals in shelters, and efforts to find homes for the animals. The report says that the conditions in the shelter violate the center's contract with the Department of Health. Among the findings in the report were "dogs are rarely, if ever, exercised, animals were not provided constant access to water, and contagious animals were sometimes kept in the same wards as noncontagious animals." The report also says that animals were sometimes left in soiled cages. The report also says that auditors "found 13 instances of animal abuse or neglect involving 12 employees" and that because auditors were denied access to some records there was "serious concern that additional instances of mistreatment may not have been detected by our audit." The incidents of reported abuse mentioned in the audit included turning a water hose on a caged animal, dragging a dog by a rope around its neck and mouth, hanging a cat by its foot and slapping a kitten. Dr. Gary J. Patronek, director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine in North Grafton, Mass., said that he had not visited the New York shelters and could not comment directly but that all urban shelters are facing challenging times. "It's certainly not uncommon for shelters, especially large shelters, in this day and age, to be under increasing scrutiny, especially shelters that are perceived to be getting large amounts of public money," Dr. Patronek said. "You also have to realize that there are lots of agendas circulating around in the animal world, in the rescue world and the shelter world, and certainly politics can play a role." He added that urban shelters receive many animals that are not adoptable because of behavior or health problems. One issue on which the comptroller's office and the health department agree is the need for more aggressive efforts to find adoptive homes for animals in the shelter. "Less than one quarter of the animals that come into the C.A.C.C. shelters are adopted, and over the last few years, C.A.C.C. has done little to improve the adoption rate," the report says. It adds that the center sometimes discourages rescue groups from taking animals from its shelter. The health department said in a statement, "We agree with some aspects of the audit's findings, particularly with the need to increase adoptions." It said that it would streamline the adoption process, increase its participation in community adoption events and use the Internet to facilitate adoptions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Link to the Comptroller's Report |
| Shelter Reform Action Committee (SRAC) ShelterReform.org: Everything you ever wanted to know about the AC&C, but were afraid to ask. |
