NEW YORK CITY—Letting out deep, powerful grunts that echoed throughout the area’s countless deserted storefronts, thousands of formerly endangered white rhinos flooded the streets of New York City Thursday mere days after residents were quarantined indoors. “After just a week of human isolation, this once-dying species has come back with a vengeance and is now stampeding through Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens,” said NYU Professor of Biology Jasmine Damcot, who added that the 5,000-pound animals appear to be multiplying exponentially and have been spotted sprinting through Times Square, sunning themselves on the Brooklyn Bridge, and ramming their horns into glass windows along Fifth Avenue. “Without humans in the picture, it’s been remarkable to watch these rhinos recover and quickly inhabit every abandoned subway platform and empty bodega they can find. Frankly, if it weren’t for the resurgence of Bengal tigers and polar bears on Staten Island, I think we’d be seeing a lot more of them.” At press time, the white rhino had once again been classified as an endangered species after a single New York City resident left his apartment to go pick up some paper towels at a local 7-Eleven.

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