Metro

Rabid raccoons are taking over New York City

Raccoons are holding New York hostage — as a warm-weather-fueled baby boom is leading the masked marauders to turn up rabid in three boroughs, invade Gracie Mansion and even overrun Central Park.

“Every time I go to the park I see one. It’s getting very scary,” said a doorman at The Beresford on Central Park West. “I see so many raccoons up in the trees, digging into the garbage. It has gotten so bad.”

On Wednesday morning, the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit was called to the mayor’s home on East End Avenue where a raccoon had torn through a hole in a furniture cover and took shelter.

“He gave me a thousand-mile stare, then growled,” said a source at the scene.

Gil Bloom, whose Standard Pest Management deals with the nuisance, says there is an increase in the city due to mild winters.





Four rabies-stricken raccoons were found this year in Inwood Hill Park, the first found in Manhattan since 2011. Racoons with rabies have also been nabbed in The Bronx and on Staten ­Island.

A Health Department rep said the city keeps no raccoon-population estimate.





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Filed under animals , wildlife , 3/13/19