Here are the dead animals New Yorkers found in Prospect Park over the last 4 years

A flock of decapitated chickens scattered behind the Prospect Park Zoo. A rotting carcass of an unknown animal festering in standing water near the Picnic House. A dead cat, burned and covered in a mysterious purple liquid. Dead dogs in cardboard boxes.

Visitors to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park are reporting dead animals in increasing numbers, according to parks department records obtained via a freedom of information request.

A Gothamist review of the data shows that Prospect parkgoers are on pace this year to exceed the post-pandemic record set in 2025 of 30 reports of dead animals in the greenspace.

The gruesome toll is outlined in 111 reports since 2022. In total, parkgoers reported 32 dead raccoons, 17 dead cats, 10 dead dogs, three dead bats, three dead hawks, an opossum, and around 15 dead chickens throughout the park.

The NYPD said it had no investigations on file regarding some of the most gruesome reports. The parks department said it could not provide details on the outcomes of specific incidents, adding that the agency does not typically alert the NYPD to reports of dead animals.

In 2023,  Alejandro Arbona recalled his dog pulling him from a path near the Wellhouse in the southern portion of the park. His dog, Charlie, led him to a worn red rolling suitcase partially buried in the dirt. Flies buzzed around the bag.

“It was sort of bulging, and my dog was extremely agitated by it. He was sniffing. He was very drawn to it. And I was going to open it, but I was too anxious about what I might find inside,” Arbona said.

Arbona pulled at the luggage and estimated it weighed about as much as his 80 lb dog. He called 311 and told the operator he believed it was a dead dog. He never opened the suitcase, but the incident appears in the records as one of the 10 dead dogs in Prospect Park.

The parks department had no information on what was in the suitcase.

A dead dog was found inside a brown cardboard box under a tree near the baseball stands in May 2025, according to the reports. Another one was left in a carrier by the lake the following month. A dead dog was found stuffed in a black bag in the bushes near the concert pavilion last August.

Bonnie McGuire, the director of the Urban Park Rangers for the parks department, said that rangers usually don’t involve police unless a living animal is actively threatening people.

She urged New Yorkers not to treat the park as a pet cemetery or dumping ground for domestic animals — whether they’re alive, dying, or already dead. “Take it to an animal care center,” she said.

“The animal will likely not survive. It’s just not good for the animals at all.”

McGuire said that increased use of the city’s parks since the pandemic could be driving the increased reports of dead animals.

"After COVID, we saw a decent uptick in the number of conditions reported to us across the city, and we just correlate that pretty much directly to the number of people who are using parks. So the more eyes, the more responses there will be," McGuire said.

In January of this year, a cluster of more than a dozen dead hens was found near the zoo, according to parks department records. Two months later, someone reported a burned cat covered in a “purple liquid” near an electrical box by the zoo, according to the data.

Parks department officials said that rangers don’t typically notify the NYPD about burned animals unless there is a pattern of incidents, a specific request to do so, or related public safety concerns.

Prospect Park has been the site of unusual incidents involving animals for decades. In 2009, a dog walker spotted 15 cow tongues nailed to trees. The following year, a revolting amount of animal entrails and chicken heads were dumped on the edge of the lake. Later that year, the federal government killed some 400 geese to prevent bird strikes with airplanes.

Goat heads were found in the park in 2010 and 2014. Observers speculated some of the incidents may have been the result of voodoo or Santeria rituals.

Edita Birnkrant, an animal rights advocate, said that the problem of animals being discarded or killed is not limited to Prospect Park. She added that more park enforcement patrol officers can help prevent the dumping of dead animals and the abandoning of living ones.

"The sacrificial stuff — that is also going on around the city," Birnkrant said. "But I think that people only feel emboldened to do these kinds of acts when they know that there's no enforcement or no accountability.”

The City Council has pushed the Mamdani administration to reverse a proposed budget cut that would eliminate 100 park patrol officers.

Catherine Quayle, a spokesperson for the Wild Bird Fund, said that the miserable winter could have pushed the death toll higher for birds.

“All wildlife had a difficult winter this year. Raptors and waterfowl in particular: the frozen lakes, prolonged snow and freezing temperatures made finding food more difficult. Avian flu continued to be a factor this year and was likely made worse by the extreme conditions and lack of food,” she wrote.

Sanitation department spokesperson Vincent Gragnani said that sanitation workers will remove dead animals with regular garbage. He said dead pets or other animals should be double-bagged and labeled to alert garbage collectors.