{"id":872990,"date":"2026-06-17T07:10:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/872990\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T07:10:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:10:26","slug":"nyc-carriage-horse-ate-lethal-amount-of-toxic-plant-in-central-park-before-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/872990\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC carriage\u00a0horse ate ‘lethal’ amount of toxic plant in Central Park before dying"},"content":{"rendered":"

A carriage horse that collapsed and died in Central Park<\/a> last week was likely poisoned after consuming a toxic plant, a report claims \u2014 sparking a vicious blame game between union leaders and park management.<\/p>\n

The horse, Deniz, had \u201cabundant\u201d plant needles and components of a Japanese yew in his mouth and stomach, according to the results of a necropsy shared Tuesday by the powerful union repping carriage horses. <\/p>\n

Deniz had \u201cenough\u201d Japanese yew \u2014 which is non-native to the US and particularly toxic to horses \u2014 in his stomach for it \u201cto be lethal,\u201d a pathologist at Cornell University\u2019s College of Veterinary Medicine reportedly found.<\/p>\n

\"ADeniz the horse reportedly consumed a lethal amount of Japanese yew in Central Park. Courtesy of Edita Birnkrant<\/p>\n

Deniz collapsed at Strawberry Fields around 7:30 p.m. on June 9. The horse\u2019s death, described by onlookers as \u201cagonizing<\/a>,\u201d occurred shortly after the animal began thrashing on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat horse, without a doubt, had an agonizing death right in front of everyone. People will never forget seeing that happen,\u201d Edita Birnkrant, the Executive Director of the nonprofit New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets told The Post.<\/p>\n

The Transport Workers Union asserted that Deniz\u2019s death wasn\u2019t the carriage driver\u2019s fault. <\/p>\n

Rather, TWU Local 100 Administrative Vice President Alexander Kemp insisted in a Tuesday statement that \u201cpoor Deniz died because the people running the Park Conservancy never warned anyone that there were deadly yew plants in the park.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is negligence at the highest level of the Conservancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deniz\u2019s death has sparked a heated blame game between the TWU and Central Park Conservancy.<\/p>\n

The Conservancy accused the TWU of \u201cnegligence\u201d since \u201cNYC parks rules plainly forbid horses from eating vegetation anywhere across our 843 acres.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CyclistsDeniz collapsed at Strawberry Fields around 7:30 p.m. on June 9. Courtesy of Edita Birnkrant<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same rule requires carriage drivers and operators to attend to their horses at all times in order to keep them safe and healthy,\u201d the statement continues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps if they had, Deniz would not have suffered as he did, and died,\u201d the Conservancy added, pushing for a horse and carriage ban.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TWU International President John Samuels vehemently rejected those calls, describing the Conservancy\u2019s response as \u201cshameful\u201d and blaming the organization for planting toxic shrubbery in areas heavily used by horses, including Cherry Hill Plaza.<\/p>\n

Organizations like PETA have long claimed that horse-drawn carriages should be banned from Central Park, especially during extreme weather.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could have been any of the carriage horses, police horses, or recreational riding horses that use the park,\u201d said Christina Hansen, a horse carriage driver and Local 100 shop steward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows how many dogs spent a day in the park and later died,\u201d Hansen continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGod forbid a child puts yew needles or a branch in his or her mouth. I blame the Central Park Conservancy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A carriage horse that collapsed and died in Central Park last week was likely poisoned after consuming a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":872991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5858,18061,75723,29625,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":["post-872990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-animal-abuse","tag-central-park","tag-horse-carriages","tag-horses","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116764203872089503","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}