Glowing eyes peering down from trees and from behind gravestones, the night creatures are disrupting the eternal sleep of the dead and driving the living to distraction. Raccoons have proliferated at the famous Green-Wood Cemetery, digging up the grass over graves, eating the flowers left by mourners, and even invading crypts to scavenge for food.
The animals have always been attracted to the oasis of green in Sunset Park and were regularly trapped and removed. However, Animal Care and Control stopped accepting healthy trapped raccoons last year - the agency still accepts rabid raccoons - forcing the cemetery personnel to trap and then simply release raccoons to another part of the huge graveyard. It's actually the lack of rabid raccoons that led to the change in policy (AC&C still accepts all raccoons in Queens and Staten Island because incidences of rabies are higher there).
The possibly thousands of raccoons aren't just a problem for Green-Wood. The cemetery's neighbors find their garbage cans ransacked, prompting one woman to call Green-Wood's VP of operations, asking if she could shoot at one of the creatures with a .22 rifle.
The midnight marauders aren't just in Sunset Park. They've reportedly infiltrated Park Slope and Williamsburg. And vets recommend parents bring kids inside if there are friendly-seeming raccoons who aren't bothered by daylight hanging around.
