Keeping an Eye Out for Rabid Raccoons

Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at raccoons carrying rabies in the city.

New Yorkers don’t usually spend much time thinking about raccoons. Rats and roaches are far more visible. But even if you don’t always see them, raccoons are everywhere.

In September, the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked raccoon experts for guidance in gently redirecting a juvenile raccoon who was drawn to the exterior of their building on Fifth Avenue.

Back in 2021, Laura Dudley Plimpton, a researcher who tracked city raccoons with GPS collars when she was a Ph.D. student, found one living above a bar in Brooklyn near Green-Wood Cemetery.

At the Delacorte Theater, where Shakespeare in the Park is performed, raccoons who live near the stage often make cameos.

“I have particular memories of one raccoon running off with Teagle Bougere’s flip-flops during ‘The Tempest,’” a stage manager once told The New York Times, referring to one of the show’s actors.

And in 2022, a college student filmed a raccoon trying to claw its way out of a light fixture in her Brooklyn apartment.

“They are experts at utilizing whatever is available to them and using it well,” Plimpton said.

While many of the city’s raccoons are healthy, some are infected with rabies, a deadly virus that attacks the central nervous system and is transmitted via saliva. Other animals, such as skunks, bats and rodents, also carry the virus, but raccoons are the most commonly reported rabid animal in New York City.

The numbers fluctuate each year, but recent city data shows that rabid raccoons have most often appeared on Staten Island and in Queens. This year, however, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has already logged two rabid raccoons in areas of Brooklyn where it has never seen them before: Midwood and Sheepshead Bay. In addition, a third and “unusually aggressive” raccoon in West Midwood was presumed to be rabid but was not tested, the Health Department said in a public health advisory issued in April.

To date this year, nine raccoons and one skunk have tested positive for rabies in New York City. It may not sound like a lot, said Dr. Andie Newman, a public health veterinarian in New York State, “but there’s potentially more lurking behind the numbers that we actually see.”

In May, to prevent further spread of the virus, the city placed fish-scented bait packets in the parks and wooded sections of Brooklyn and Queens, including Prospect Park, Forest Park and Marine Park.

“When they bite into it with their little sharp teeth, there is a liquid vaccine that gets into the mouth,” Newman said.

In the fall, the city is planning to place the bait in other areas as well. It’s important that people and dogs avoid touching the packets. They’re not considered harmful, but dogs may vomit if they were to eat many of them. And if the pink vaccine liquid gets on human hands, there is a small risk of becoming infected with the vaccinia virus, which is used to make the wildlife rabies vaccine.

Rabid animals are often assumed to be aggressive. But that’s not always the case. They may instead appear to have a wobbly gait, act confused or stagger and fall down, said Sarah Bookbinder, the executive director of the Charles N. Gordon Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Earlville, N.Y., who advised the Met about the loitering raccoon.

According to the Health Department, other signs that an animal may be rabid include low energy; paralysis; chewing unusual objects like wood, soil or plants; having a vacant stare; and drooling or foaming at the mouth.

Given that raccoons are most active during dawn and dusk, people sometimes assume that raccoons are rabid if they’re out during the day, said Bookbinder, who specializes in the treatment of raccoons.

But in the spring, she added, it’s common for mother raccoons to forage for food to avoid leaving their kits alone in their den at night.

To protect your dog or cat (and yourself) from rabies, make sure that your pets are vaccinated. New York State requires that all domesticated dogs and cats be vaccinated for rabies, but some owners skip the vaccine, often out of concerns that the vaccines could be harmful to pets or unnecessary or could lead to illness. A 2024 survey estimated that about 22 percent of dog owners and 26 percent of cat owners could be classified as vaccine hesitant.

Even indoor cats need to be vaccinated, experts say, in part because of bats, which can enter homes. In 2025, two people in New York City received rabies antibodies and a vaccine series for exposure to a rabid bat.

If your pet has been in contact with an animal that may be rabid, report it to the Health Department and contact your veterinarian, Newman said. Dogs and cats who have already had the rabies vaccine will require a booster.

And when you’re outside, avoid contact with wild or stray animals.

“Enjoy nature from a distance,” Newman said.

Weather

It will be a sunny day today with a high near 78. The sky will remain clear tonight as temperatures drop near 61.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until June 19 (Juneteenth).

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“When I look at the state of housing, I feel a lot of anger.” — Emely Rodriguez, 24, who grew up in Williamsburg and began engaging in housing advocacy at a young age.

METROPOLITAN diary

The Glow

Dear Diary:

On an unseasonably warm Brooklyn night, I was on my way to meet friends when I stumbled upon a glowing, heavy, orb-like glass sculpture on the sidewalk.

Something about it pulled at me. I scooped it up and carried it onto the train.

It moved with me through bars and parks and city blocks, unveiling itself as an invitation for connection. It passed tenderly from hand to hand, stranger to stranger, each of us sharing the weight and the moment.

On the way home that evening, I stood on the subway platform buzzing from the interactions the sculpture had touched off and with a renewed love for the city.

A handsome man gesturing toward the unusual item I was holding motivated me to remove my earbuds and fall into an easy, flirty rhythm as we fell onto the G train together, until his stop pulled him away.

Arriving home, I chastised myself for letting the moment close. With the residue of the evening’s magic still on my skin and feeling a swaggering confidence, I posted a missed connection on Craigslist.

The next morning, there it was: a note from orb man.

“I think it’s more of a nest shape, but we can argue about it when we see each other,” he wrote, the words levitating up and out of my phone.

We met again two days later. I left the orb at home.

— Billie Hirsch

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.