Tennessee's State wild animal and a lovable critter, according to pop culture, is taking some heat for rabies cases increasing in New York City.
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Indeed, raccoons, the Volunteer State's beloved furry woodland critter, are causing denizens of the Big Apple to clutch their pearls. City data obtained by The New York Post reports that the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island have been hit with 26 cases of the critters sporting rabies so far this year.
The outlet points out that it's 12 times the number of cases from 2024. It's reportedly a 30% increase over 2025.
The Post added that in previous years, cases of raccoons with rabies in NYC have been higher. However, in 2026, the critters, who enjoy rummaging through trash for goodies, have been peeking out of dumpsters in boroughs of the city where they'd rarely been spotted before.
Director of the Zoonotic and Vector-Borne Disease Unit at the New York City Health Department, Sally Slavinski, weighed in on the issue.
"Historically, we never really saw that many rabid raccoons in Queens or Brooklyn," Slavinski told The Post. However, in this decade, the cute critters have crept in...
"In 2022, and into 2023, we saw clustering of raccoons in Queens along the Nassau County border. Then there was a spread into Brooklyn and into Long Island," Slavinski explained.
New York City Residents Note Uptick in Rabies Cases
That said, locals have taken note, with some claiming residents feeding the critters may have caused their uptick in numbers.
"I reported a sick raccoon in the park by 19th and Hoyt north to 311. [It] got picked up by park rangers on June 11," one Queens-dwelling Reddit user wrote, per The Post. They went on to add that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene confirmed the sickly moon puppy had rabies.
Back in September, two people in Suffolk County received rabies treatment after their dogs encountered rabid raccoons. They were among 32 rabies cases reported in Suffolk County in 2026, up 10% from last year. 31 of those cases reportedly involved raccoons.
It's unclear why populations of raccoons have grown in and around NYC in recent years. Regardless, Slavinski doesn't see them (or the rabies they sometimes carry) leaving the city.
"As long as we have raccoons, it's going to continue to circulate until we find a way to produce an amazing vaccine that allows us to vaccinate a really large proportion of that population," she told The Post.
