City Critters is a New York State charitable organization licensed to operate in the City of New York for the rescue and placement of stray and abandoned animals.
City Critters is a member of the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals.
Donations made to City Critters, or paid on our behalf, are tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code; financial statements and current IRS Determination Letter are available for review upon request.
Support our rescue work with a donation:
Make a donation using a credit card through Network for Good:
Mail contributions to:
- City Critters Inc.
- P.O. Box 1345
- Canal Street Station
- New York NY 10013
Would you like to be a City Critters volunteer?
Please e-mail us or click the button below:
CCI Newsletters
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Help needed for cats facing eviction!
Pictures and biographies have been posted here on Facebook.
These kitties all live with one man in The Bronx, NY. The city is threatening to evict the man and euthanize the cats. Some of these cats are elderly; some have manageable health problems. If you are interested in adopting or fostering one of these cats, or in providing some other support for the cause, please let us know. You can leave a message at 212-252-3183, or e-mail us.
City Critters Adoption Procedure
We try to satisfy the needs of people who want to adopt cats, but our first responsibility is always to the animals in our care, so there is an application and interview process. The goal is a lifelong (perhaps 20 years) loving, stable, indoor situation. City Critters' adoption process is similar to that of other animal rescue/adoption groups. Like Bide-A-Wee, CACC, the ASPCA and The Humane Society, we ask for references and identification and ask adopters to sign an adoption agreement. We deliver the animals to their new homes at a time of mutual convenience. Because we deliver the animal to your home, we prefer to adopt to homes within our immediate area.
Featured Candidates for Adoption
Click here to see our current featured candidates for adoption.
If there is already an animal in your home, we will help with the introduction process. We are always available to discuss your questions and any adjustment problems your new cat may have. We ask that you give the cat a reasonable time to settle in, but if the adoption doesn't work out, we will take the animal back and continue to work to place it in an excellent home. We keep our cats for as long as it takes to place them. Like many cat adoption agencies, we try to place kittens, young cats, and older cats who enjoy cat company in pairs or in situations where there is already another cat. We always have a number of adult cats who can or must be adopted singly.
Click here to see our pet list.
Who we are
City Critters, Inc. is a small New York City animal rescue and adoption group. If you are not familiar with us, here is our brief history. In 1994, we formed City Critters, Inc. as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) incorporation under the laws of New York State to help us continue the local cat rescue and adoption work we had already been doing less formally as a few individuals, mostly within Manhattan.
Over the first few years, we rescued and placed an average of 300-500 cats and kittens a year. In addition to many individual animals, we dealt with a number of large projects, including about 60 ferals in Battery Park City, 25 under the Brooklyn Bridge at a DOT facility, 20+ from a Chelsea lumberyard, 80 house cats from an eviction on the Lower East Side, 27 from a Brooklyn eviction, 34 from an emergency in Queens, countless abandoned friendly store cats from several outdoor locations in Chinatown, 65 from a Chinatown eviction, and many from the 110th St. Center for Animal Care & Control shelter. City Critters now works with 700-900 homeless cats and kittens, and a number of dogs each year.
Once City Critters rescues or accepts a homeless animal for placement, the animal is taken directly to one of our participating veterinarians and provided with all medical attention required, including blood testing, spaying or neutering, vaccinations, treatment for parasites, and care for any treatable special needs. Some of our "Special Needs" kitties can be seen here. The animal is then placed in foster care until a permanent home can be found (which may sometimes take quite a while). Homes are found through pet supply store adoption programs and by referrals from veterinarians' offices, former adopters, and supporters. The process includes written application, interview, reference check, signed agreement, and home delivery. If an adoption does not work out, we ask that the animal be returned to us.
Every day we receive many calls to rescue companion animals from the street, from people who cannot keep them any more (like senior citizens going into nursing homes), and from city shelter workers (asking us to save some of the animals they will otherwise have to kill). New York's shelters are still unable to cope with the flood of companion animals turned into their facilities or with the deluge of emergency calls from the public to pick up stray, abandoned, and injured animals. The majority of the animals who end up in the NY shelter system, approximately 45,000 annually, are euthanized. Many of them are completely adoptable, and are destroyed simply for lack of space.
We are only a few volunteers with jobs, families, and otherwise ordinary lives. We have no office, no shelter, no staff, and cannot respond to every call for help. But by networking, and with community support, our dedicated volunteers are still able to accomplish hundreds of miracles each year, and to encourage our neighbors to get involved and help homeless animals in their own back yards. An important part of our work involves offering technical support (such as lending humane traps, carriers, and cages) and sharing information (where to secure low-cost spaying/neutering and other vet care, how to place a companion animal, how to recover a lost pet).
City Critters is not subsidized by the government and receives no major funding. We receive a few small foundation grants, but most of the high cost of rescuing, vetting and fostering our rescued animals is paid for out of our own pockets and from relatively small donations, received from adoption fees, generated by annual mailings, and from occasional small fundraising events. Rescuing animals is very expensive. How much we can do depends on our immediate financial resources and, as importantly, on finding excellent placements for the animals we have, in order to make room for more. If you think you can help us, want us to help you, or just need more information, please give us a call.
Cats for adoption can be seen at PetCo, (31st St. and 2nd Ave. in Manhattan, 7 days a week).
Petco is located near 34th Street stop of the IRT 4, 5, and 6 trains and can also be reached via the number 15 bus.
- City Critters Inc.
- P.O. Box 1345
- Canal Street Station
- New York NY 10013
- Phone: (212) 252-3183
- e-mail: info@citycritters.org
- Visit the City Critters website.
Click here to see more of our excellent cats and kittens.
