The city kills hundreds of raccoons and other critters for rabies൩ tests only to find the vast majority aren’t infected.
The Health Department tested 662 raccoons for rabies between 2014 and 2016 — but just 18 had the deadly viral disease, officials said.
Only 23 of allℱ 1,248 animals euthanized and tested during that time were actually rab꧙id — less than 2 percent.
Animals m𓆉ust be dead for the rabies test bꦐecause it requires brain tissue.
Ra♍bies in New York is most easily transmitted through raccoons, so the fluffy garbage bandits are doomed if they appear sick to authorities.
“They always go to Animal Care and Control because they are rabies vector species and they have to be tested,” said Rich Simon, Director of the Parks Department Wildl💧ife Unit. “If they’re not sick animals, we really want to prevent that from happening.”
State law requires that cities destroy animals suspected of𒊎 being rabid, unless they’re dogs, cats, ferrets or livestock. Those animals can be kept under observation if they bite humans🦋 and the test isn’t done if they don’t seem sick after 10 days.
“Healthy animals are not euthanized for the sole purpose of rabies testing,” city Health Department spokesman Julien Martinez said. “Most of t🌌he animals that underwent rabies🌳 testing were previously set to be humanely euthanized. Only animals that are sick or injured are humanely euthanized.”
But some animal rights activists slammed the teꦓsting protocols as unneccessary, unproductive and immoral.
“These are not zombie invaders that are going to eat your children and your dog,” said Edita Birnkrant, executive director of the animals-rights grou𒉰p NYCLASS, which unsuccessfully tried to push Mayor Bill de Blasio to ban horse carriages.
She added, “Even 𒊎beyond unethical, this isꦇ a waste of resources and time.”
Stephanie Bell, PETA’s senior director of cruelty casework, said, “If officials want to do something productive about rabies — which they’ve already shown is not e🅺ndemic in the wild raccoon population — they should enforce vaccination laws for domestic animals, ensure that garbage is disposed of properly, and pass prohibitions against feeding wildlife.”
“The way the city is handling it … rounding up those large numbers and killing them, you have to say there’s some level of misinformation going on,” Birnkrant said.
The city spent near🔯ly $660,000 in the last year on an ad campaign to raise awareness about wildlife, including raccoons.
“Our WildlifeNYC campaign emphasizes that raccoons can be seen day or night,” Martinez said. “The purpose of this message is to avoid the unnecessa👍ry euthanizing of healthy raccoons.”
There hasn’t been a human case of rabies in NYC s♑ince 1947, according to officials.
Wildlife experts said rabies spikes among city animals every few years because an outbreak will wipe out scores of raccoons. Once their numbers replenishܫ, rabies increases again.
The city saw 144 rabid 𒁏animals in 2010 and there were𓂃 just 13 in 2011.
Officials reported 11 rabid animals in the city so far this year, the same number in all of 2015 and 2🅠016. All 2017 cases have been in the Bronx.