Come and get it!
The feds and an upstate college are using vaccine-laced treats to inoculate Brooklyn’s raccoons against rabies, the city announced last week.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will set up feeding chutes full of the medicinal morsels in Brooklyn’s green spaces later this week, agency representatives said. The agency is using the oldest trick in the book to make sure these raccoons take their medicine.
“It’s like putting a pill inside some peanut butter for your dog,” said the Agriculture Department’s Carol Bannerman.
The vaccines are coated in a “very smelly, fishy-scented material” made of vegetable fat, icing sugar, and marshmallow flavoring, she said.
The laboratory-produced lucky charms are safe for pets to eat, but too many might cause vomiting, researchers said. The vaccine can cause a rash in humans, but only if it gets into an open wound, Bannerman said.
Cornell University is funding the project with a state grant. The undertaking offers the Ivy League agricultural school a rare research opportunity, said spokeswoman Laura Bigler.
“Once the vaccine is in the field, animals are live-trapped and we take a sample of blood from the raccoons to determine what proportion have been immunized and see how to work more effectively,” she said.
The exact locations where the biologists will set up the inoculation stations is still under review, Bigler said.
Generally, feeding stations will stretch along Brooklyn’s waterfront from Canarsie to Coney Island, and Prospect Park will get its share of the beer-bong-shaped food chutes as well, Bannerman said.
But neither the city, the Agriculture Department, nor Cornell could confirm that the vaccine dispensers would reach Bensonhurst, where city workers discovered a rabid raccoon attacking a pack of feral cats on Aug. 20.
The feds and Cornell are waiting on location approval from the city, which they expect will come this week, Bigler said.
“As soon as we get the go-ahead, we’re ready to do it,” she said.
