Pandemic Threat Alerts NYC DOH to Existence of “Pets”
After the H5N1-related deaths of at least two pet cats, DOH and ACC say the pound system is bird flu-free. For now.
Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s March 21, 2025. This is The Weekly Poop.
This week — last Saturday, actually — the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a press release updating New Yorkers on known incidents of H5N1 contributing to the deaths of at least two pet cats in the city. Both deaths were linked to the same raw cat food.
From DOH:
Today, the New York City Health Department (NYC Health Department) is advising New Yorkers to not feed their pets food from the raw pet food company Savage Cat Food. Avian influenza (bird flu) virus was detected in two cats and a suspected third cat over the past two months, all connected to Savage Cat Food, poultry packets lot number 11152026. The Health Department has shared this information with the FDA and the company. The overall risk of bird flu to the public remains low. To date, no human has developed bird flu in New York City.
The release, which I recommend reading in full, is authoritative. It is thorough. It is useful. It elicits trust. It might even be comforting, depending on one’s disposition. It’s an example of what government can do, and do well, when it wants to. In fact, as opposed as we are around here to animals who were birthed to be consumed suffering and dying for nothing, that press release was the final push to at least for the time being rid TSNY HQ of all raw pet food, which Harlow doesn’t like all that much anyway.
There was nothing in the release about NYC ACC. Fair enough. But — and it’s a big “but” — there was no subsequent missive pertaining to the thousands of highly vulnerable cats and dogs warehoused across the city’s pound system. Not from DOH. Nor from ACC. And certainly not from Justin Brannan’s Office of Animal Welfare, which wakes up only to pat Risa on the head.
This is why NYC needs a department of animal welfare, rather than a half-empty file drawer in the mayor’s office and a health department that already considers domesticated companion animals (known to us normies as “pets”) as potential patient zeroes waiting to “The World Without Us” us.
It is also why The Scoop New York exists. It took several rounds of emailed queries to extract — ACC spokesperson Katy Hansen’s office number being hidden from the public and all — but we now have a little more info than when the week began.
“To date, ACC has not seen any suspected cases of bird flu in any cats in the shelter system,” Hansen told TSNY. Good news, undoubtedly. But likely temporary. I’m no epidemiologist — a good thing, since as a reporter I’m already on the national shit list — but it seems that as long as the virus keeps showing up it’s just a matter of time before it spreads to animal shelters.
Another excuse for ACC to kill cats and dogs by the thousands is undoubtedly not good news. So we asked the ACC/DOH/MOAW troika for a commitment on informing the public “if/when ACC sees an outbreak.” Reader, we got one. In all caps.
From Hansen [highlight theirs]:
Now, advocates know NYC ACC excels at getting caught flat-footed even when it has years to prepare. The difference between we-got-this-shit-handled DOH press releases and DOH management of ACC is the difference between birds and bird flu.
If the agencies follow protocol, they will inform New Yorkers of an ACC outbreak after the doors are shut and the trash bags are filling up.
Whatever happens, New Yorkers will be watching. And remembering.
The Scoop New York is here for New York's companion animals and their people. It’s all we do.
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Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
Welcome to New York, where animal cruelty is subsidized and homeless dogs get to beg for heat for their shelter cages.
The American Kennel Club is opposed to a state bill that would ban devocalization surgeries because they love dogs so much. (The bill was on its way to the governor last year before Carl Heastie killed it.)
The occasion of this Guardian piece on urban deer populations seems as good a time as any to note that Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill that would have advanced the idea of keeping wildlife (and domesticated animals; you know, “pets”) away from cars and trucks.
Related: Western New Yorkers doing the work Hochul and Heastie won’t.
Think the first cat or dog to be executed at NYC ACC’s eventual Brooklyn death house has been born yet? (Pizza Roll was many years away from existing when DOH began work on ACC Queens, where he was the first puppy known to be poisoned, stuffed in a trash bag, and burned to ash.)
Related: As long as reporters don’t fact check what NYC ACC shovels at them, ACC and DOH will control what the public knows about ACC (and DOH). Transcribing is not reporting, people!
Winograd: “Adoption appointments kill dogs.”
If you can read this without getting at least a little verklempt I do not want to know you.
And finally: Godspeed Chef, Chip and Chop.
This week on The Scoop New York
NYC ACC Killed 1,315 Cats and 1,644 Dogs in 2024
New York City's "animal care centers" have destroyed nearly 34,000 adoptable cats and dogs since 2015.
Adoptables
NYC ACC is working half-time yet again this weekend with just one mobile adoption event, tomorrow in Brooklyn.
Cocoa Puffs is a 3-year-old Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig. Read all about her and her bonded family members, all of them available now at Lollypop Farm in Rochester.
Montana, above, was surrendered to CNY SPCA in Syracuse by his person after eight years. He is 9 and needs his final forever home stat.
Tomi and Sprinkles, also pictured above, are 3-year-old bonded sisters. As yours truly is a compulsive black cat collector, please try to get to Smithtown Animal Shelter before I do.
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:
Savage Cat Food Chicken (bird flu)
Check here for info on earlier pet food recalls.