Residents of Youngstown Ohio are on alert after police have responded to more than a dozen phone calls of suspicious raccoons.
Local resident Robert Coggeshall told WKBN that he was outside his home with his dogs when,“I looked over there and got distracted because I saw a raccoon coming our way,”
“He would stand up on his hind legs, which I’ve never seen a raccoon do before, and he would show his teeth and then he would fall over backward and go into almost a comatose condition.”
In the past 3 weeks, police have been called to more than a dozen incidents of raccoons behaving oddly. In all instances the raccoons, who seemed to have lost all fear of humans, had to be put down.
But according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the raccoons are not zombies, but are instead infected with a disease called distemper. Which is exactly what a government agency who is trying to cover up a raccoon zombie outbreak would say.
“Raccoons are really prone to getting diseases that even amongst themselves can be devastating to the population,” said Geoff Westerfield of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. “When you end up with just a couple of individuals left that aren’t as susceptible to it, then the disease kind of dies out for a while until the populations grow again.”
The Department of Natural Resources also warns that “you should avoid any raccoon that is active during daylight hours, has lost its fear of humans, or appears uncoordinated, confused or listless.”
When reached for comment about the zombie raccoon outbreak, Youngstown Police Department told Riot Fest they had no comment, which is exactly what you would expect from someone trying to cover up a zombie raccoon outbreak.
And I for one welcome our new zombie raccoon overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted music festival, we can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground trash caves.