Like a little crew of old-time bandits, the first few raccoon faces poked out of the underbrush on a recent evening in Central Park, their masked, button eyes glowing with each flash of a smartphone camera. Undaunted, several of the animals scuttled onto the walkway toward the picture takers. They were followed by more raccoons — and then still more.

All told, 22 raccoons clustered on a path near the southeastern edge of the park, where it meets 59th Street in Manhattan. They strolled around while a gaggle of onlookers tried to pose for selfies with them. Some people fed the animals soft pretzels from a pushcart by hand, as the raccoons stood on their hind legs to wrest morsels from their admirers’ fingertips.

“Is this normal?” Karen Newis, 56, a visitor from Greensboro, N.C., asked her sister Stefanie Price, who lives in Manhattan, as they passed the raccoons. One of the animals gingerly tiptoed toward a baby in a stroller, sniffing.

“No, it’s not normal,” Ms. Price, 48, said. “They’re so cute, though.”

In fact, the throng of raccoons at the edge of the Pond in Central Park has become something of a tourist attraction, with unofficial visiting hours each evening. Roly-poly with their winter fur (and, perhaps, all those pretzels), in pairs or in dozens, the nocturnal animals gambol on the pathway as soon as it gets dark. They look for passers-by with snacks. The practice of feeding them, however Instagram-worthy, is frowned upon by New York City’s parks department and wildlife experts.