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Videos: Fearless Queens Man Loves Feeding His Backyard Raccoons
By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 21, 2013
Modified Aug 21, 2013
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 21, 2013
Modified Aug 21, 2013
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At first glance, you may be charmed by the man below, who documents meeting six raccoons in his backyard in Queens. He then enlists his daughter to help feed them all cat food in four videos. "Went out to smoke another cigarette, around 7 pm in my backyard, to find 3 baby Raccoons, chilling on the fence," he wrote. "I went and got cat food and hand fed them, the coolest shit ever, love these raccoons there [sic] so damn cute." But make no mistake: this man is a prime candidate for the 2013 Darwin Award.
First: raccoons generally aren't friendly to people, so when they are, something is up. If you find one in your apartment, you probably don't want to adopt it and raise it as if it were an antic-prone orangutan. Animals with rabies often exhibit unusual behavior even if they don't look diseased: "An infected animal may be more aggressive, more friendly or sexual, and may bite other animals."
Second: he's brought his daughter out with him to greet them, despite the fact that they have been known to occasionally kill kittens and attack Instagrammers. Third: he's wearing flip-flops while doing all this.
But who knows, maybe he's bonded with the raccoons and he'll start shoving one of them in his mouth on the subway for a laugh. At the very least, we can all take comfort knowing that thanks to the feast he provided them, those raccoons aren't going anywhere—which means this man will soon be the least popular person in his neighborhood.
Tagged
darwin
disease
queens
raccoon
raccoons
unwise decisions
original
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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