10 Ignored Questions for the NYC Office of Animal Welfare
MOAW Director Alexandra Silver worked in the NYC ACC communications office for a decade. It shows.
The Scoop New York is a newsletter dedicated to covering the movement for a true no-kill New York State, from Buffalo to Brooklyn. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were nonetheless exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s March 8, 2025. This is The Weekly Poop, Belated Edition.
This week, The Scoop New York sent some shoulda-been innocuous questions to Alexandra Silver, who since 2022 has worked as director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare.
Four days and one follow-up email later, we received no response.
In case you missed it, in 2019 then-mayor Bill de Blasio, in concert with City Council Member Justin Brannan, pulled a bait and switch on New Yorkers by quietly nixing a proposed city department of animal welfare in favor of an office of animal welfare.
Taking NYC ACC oversight away from the indifferent city health department, where every commissioner is as up their own ass as the last one, was the best chance homeless cats and dogs had to survive their time in the kill pound system. Not only did de Blasio and Brannan purposely fool advocates while maintaining the status quo, they condemned companion animals to continual suffering and death at ACC for the foreseeable future, since there is no telling when the City Council might broach the oversight issue again. If ever.
Three years later, Mayor Eric Adams appointed Silver — a 10-year veteran of the NYC ACC lack of communications office — to take the reins at MOAW.
And why not? What better way to put the kibosh on ACC reform than by putting an ACC loyalist in charge of handling concerns and complaints about ACC? My sister! My daughter!
Click below to see the questions Silver deemed too tough to answer, like “Is MOAW director your full-time job?” and “What do you do on a typical day?”
We also asked how many citizen-generated NYC ACC-related complaints MOAW resolved last year, and where to find attendant data and reports.
We asked what MOAW is doing about ACC shutting its doors to intakes several times a year, in violation of its “open admission” mandate.
We asked why after nearly six years the MOAW website appears unfinished, and why there are apparently no stand-alone MOAW social media feeds.
We asked what MOAW is doing to help migrant families who could lose their pets at any time.
We asked what MOAW is doing to prepare NYC for bird flu.
These are not “gotcha” questions, any more than asking about the preferred office thermostat setting or the phone number for the public relations desk.
They are unanswerable only if you have no answers to give. If your job title is more title than job. If you are more house cat than watchdog.
According to her CV, Silver was once a reporter. As such she is surely aware of a key tenet of Journalisming 101: If you have to ask a media-avoidant bureaucrat what they do all day, the answer is the question.
Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
Related ^: A functioning animal welfare department or office could make all the difference to citizen-led initiatives like this one for NYC bodega cats. But since NYC has neither, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
The field of candidates looking to unseat Eric Adams in June or November now includes the current City Council speaker, a former governor, and a former Republican aide to a former Republican former mayor.
Unbelievable, even for NY: North Hempstead residents who look after stray and abandoned cats, because the town won’t, have for years begged officials to open a cat shelter, and for years those officials have advised constituents to STFU and keep doing electeds’ job for them.
Nicole Malliotakis, congressional rep for Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, says she wants the U.S. to reduce the number of animals we torture and kill in the name of science.
Five months after the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation raided an animal sanctuary to exterminate a pet squirrel and a raccoon, Governor Hochul has named a new DEC commissioner.
While considered a success, officials say an Otsego County animal cruelty task force formed in 2019 needs additional resources to make cases and care for animals seized from abusers.
Intense video: Sly, a 22-year-old, 1,300 pound horse, was rescued after falling through ice into a pond in Saratoga Springs.
One week from today (15MAR25) the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons will host what promises to be the funnest day ever.
From Nassau County-based North Shore Animal League: “Tour For Life is celebrating 25 years on the road as the world’s largest mobile cooperative lifesaving pet adoption event!”
The NYC CBS affiliate filed a nice piece on A Fair Shake for Youth, a therapy dog program for city school kids.
And finally, Flushing is now home to Queens’ first-ever cat cafe.
Adoptables
NYC ACC is working half-time again this weekend with just one mobile adoption event, today in Queens.
Puppy Angus, pictured above, is “a happy guy who loves to play.” He’s available now at Catskill Animal Rescue in Sullivan County.
Twinkle, also pictured, is six years old and has been at Chautauqua County Humane Society for a full year. Apply here to take her home.
Beautiful Bluey, 2, is at Lollypop Farm in Rochester and would love a chill environment with another dog.
Find New York adoptables near you on Dogs in Danger and Adopt a Pet.
The Scoop New York attempts to confirm that animals are still available before we feature them in The Weekly Poop. If an animal you see here has already found a home, consider asking about other available adoptables.
Food recalls
The FDA has announced one recent pet food recall:
Wild Coast Raw Frozen Boneless Free Range Chicken Formula (bird flu)
Check here for info on earlier pet food recalls.