Bring On The Raccoon Zombie Apocalypse
New York Post – More than two dozen Central Park raccoons have died in an ongoing viral outbreak that causes “zombie” behavior in the critters, authorities determined.
Of 26 raccoons found dead inside the park since June 24, two tested positive for the canine distemper virus, which doesn’t affect humans but can spread to unvaccinated dogs, officials with the city Health and Parks departments revealed on Saturday. The other 24 are believed to be infected by distemper because their deaths were clustered in such a short time and area.
The latest raccoon corpse was found at East 106th Street and East Drive on Saturday morning.
Parks staff also have witnessed distemper symptoms in living raccoons. “They looked like they were circulating, wandering, having spasms,” said Dr. Sally Slavinski, an assistant director at the Health Department. “Some of the raccoons had some sort of nasal discharge.”
Of all the animals that I wouldn’t want to be involved in a full-on zombie outbreak, I think raccoons ultimately fall somewhere in my top 25. I wouldn’t put them atop the list because they’re just too small, but if you’ve ever encountered some raccoons in the woods, and I don’t mean the Central Park woods, no disrespect to the Central Park woods, but like some legit ass forest where you can walk around and not see or hear other people, raccoons are feisty little fucks. They’re sneaky, quicker than you think, and absolutely pack a punch that will leave you bloodied and wet with urine in your undercarriage. They can also climb trees, which I always find impressive in other animals. Everybody loves to climb trees.
With that in mind, I can’t help but be a little scared/excited about this whole story. Do I want to live in a world with zombie raccoons? Probably not, but you’d be lying if you said it doesn’t pique your interest in the slightest.
Humans would overcome. That’s the important thing to remember here. Sure, maybe some people would die because they got bit by the zombie raccoons but we would be able to quarantine them fast enough to not have the disease wipe out the majority of the human race. I’ve seen enough Sci-Fi movies to know that’s exactly how it goes.
Send all the inmates serving life sentences to fight off the bloodied and disfigured, previously-dead raccoons with some swords and hockey equipment and we’ll be done with the whole issue in no time. Then we’d just get to enjoy all the footage because each one of the felons will have a camera attached to their helmets to record the Battle for Central Park, and ultimately the battle for Earth all across the globe. Basically it will be the first ever government funded Sci-Fi documentary/epic cinematic achievement. We could also send in Will Smith to fight with the inmates. I feel like Will Smith was put on God’s sweet green Earth to play that role. Just a few ideas I’ve got running around my head.
For now I’d say just stay clear of Central Park at night, but I think most people already do that anyway for a variety of other reasons. Just add zombie raccoons to the list I guess.