{"id":182920,"date":"2025-09-26T12:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T12:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/182920\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T12:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T12:12:07","slug":"suffolk-county-reports-10th-rabid-raccoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/182920\/","title":{"rendered":"Suffolk County reports 10th rabid raccoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 10th rabid raccoon has been found in Suffolk County \u2014 the second one from Deer Park that has tested positive this year, Suffolk health officials said,<\/p>\n

Another eight rabid raccoons were found earlier this year in the Amityville area, the first on Jan. 28.<\/p>\n

In July, Newsday reported that Nassau County officials declared rabies<\/a> an “imminent public health threat,” warning residents to protect their pets and stay away from wild animals.<\/p>\n

Including a rabid raccoon reported earlier this month, there were 23 reported rabies cases <\/a>for 2025 in Nassau County \u2014 22 raccoons and one cat, health department spokesperson Alyssa Zohrabian said.<\/p>\n

To try and stem the spread of the disease, the Suffolk health department this week distributed raccoon\u00a0bait <\/a>filled with oral rabies vaccine in wooded areas of Babylon, Huntington, Smithtown and Islip towns.<\/p>\n

Dr. Gregson Pigott, Suffolk County\u2019s health commissioner, in a release, said he expected the baiting program would\u00a0“contain and eliminate”\u00a0rabies among Suffolk’s wild animals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before this year, Suffolk County had not reported a\u00a0rabid raccoon\u00a0since 2009.<\/p>\n

Rabies is a virus and\u00a0is potentially fatal if left untreated. Initial symptoms include headache and fever but it can progress to convulsions and death. It can be contracted through exposure to saliva or tissue from a rabid animal through a bite.<\/p>\n

State and county law requires all dogs, cats and ferrets be vaccinated against rabies.<\/p>\n

The Suffolk health department and Islip town is offering free rabies vaccinations\u00a0for dogs, cats and ferrets on Oct.\u00a05, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Town of Islip Animal Shelter at 200 S. Technology Dr., Central Islip.<\/p>\n

Babylon, Huntington, Islip, or Smithtown residents can report dead raccoons to php@suffolkcountyny.gov or call 631-852-5900 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 10th rabid raccoon has been found in Suffolk County \u2014 the second one from Deer Park that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[97,79,5478,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-182920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-suffolk","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}