NEW YORK, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- New York City put fewer stray dogs and cats to death in 2004 than in any year on record since the 1890's, the New York Times reports.
The city's Animal Care and Control shelters put to sleep 23,684 dogs and cats in 2004, a 17 percent decrease from 2003. The trend has been falling since the 1950s when more people began caring for pets indoors, the Times reported Saturday.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said in 1928 about 287,000 animals, mostly cats, were killed.
New York City, population 8 million, killed 3.2 dogs and cats per 1,000 people in 2004, a rate far below the national average of 17.4 per 1,000. San Antonio, with a population of 1 million, killed about 35 animals per 1,000 people in 2003, said Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, a newspaper in Washington State that covers animal protection.
