A kitten who was only one week-old, had been cleared for adoption, and was about to be pickled up by her owner was just suddenly euthanized at a New York City pound.

The New York Post reported that an orange tabby cat named Peanut Butter was brought to Brooklyn’s Animal Care Center just before noon Saturday, with internal notes showing that she was in good condition and free of any obvious maladies. This was confirmed by Guardian Angel Nancy Siliwa, who helped to coordinate the adoption.

“She was observed to be ‘active, crawling and vocal.’ She weighed 4.4 oz., well within the normal range for a 1 week old kitten.  Her lungs were clear, no eye or ear discharge was noted and her skin was free of parasites,” Sliwa wrote in a Facebook post. “For a stray kitten that is a fantastic condition to be in.”

The city-run pound, which is given millions in tax dollars, has a policy against keeping neonatal kittens overnight because the babies require around-the-clock care and it doesn’t have the staff to keep up. Siliwa explained that at around 2pm, the pound sent out Peanut Butter’s story to rescue groups and urged an adoption so the kitten could make it out alive before the shelter closed at 6 p.m.

A fellow Guardian Angel agreed to care for the kitten at the anti-crime group’s Brooklyn headquarters, and Sliwa got the green light for the adoption around 4:30 p.m. She said she was told that Peanut Butter was “prepped and ready to go,” but when she was just 15 minutes away from the East New York shelter, she got a text message saying, “They just killed her.”

“It just stops you in your tracks, like, what just happened here?” Siliwa recalled.

The pound sent an email to her, only offering a vague excuse for what happened.

“With deepest regrets, I must report that Peanut Butter was just reexamined by our Vet and the decision has been made to euthanize,” the email read. “They’ve struggled all day to get PB’s temperature up and she was not eating and declining. Thank you so very much for working on her.”

Siliwa was having none of this, however. She said that the euthenization “just doesn’t make any sense,” and the cat-mom-to-be who was ready to welcome Peanut Butter was “crushed” when she heard the news of her death.

“What would’ve been worse, just giving the cat a chance or just putting it down? I was willing to give the cat a chance,” Sliwa lamented. “They had nothing to lose in that situation by just handing over the kitten, like, let me give a go at this because clearly you don’t have the staff to make this happen. I understand that, but what’s the problem with letting us do it?”

“They’re tasked with saving animals and in less than five hours, they killed this kitten,” she added. “That should seem to go against the philosophy of what they’re getting money for in the first place.”

The ACC would not respond when asked for comment.

This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.

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