https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/09/rabid-raccoons-rabies-oral-vaccine-packets/671347/America Has a Rabid-Raccoon Problem. For decades, the government has been carrying out an ambitious plan to mass vaccinate the wild animals by airplane.By Sarah Zhang
September 6, 2022
The story of America’s rabid raccoons begins in Florida. Rabies was once rarely found in raccoons, but in the ’50s, an outbreak began spreading from the Sunshine State. It diffused first to neighboring states and then made a great leap north into the mid-Atlantic, possibly via the shipment of over 3,500 Florida raccoons to hunting preserves in Virginia. From there, rabid raccoons ambled their way as far north as Canada and as far west as Ohio. The East Coast became “one solid belt of raccoon rabies,” says Charles Rupprecht, the former chief of the CDC’s rabies program.
For the past 30 years, the U.S. government has embarked on a far more unusual and elaborate campaign: mass immunization of raccoons. Every summer and fall, the USDA, in collaboration with local agencies, drops millions of packets of oral rabies vaccines over the U.S. by air and by hand. The vaccines come in two flavors: fish meal and vanilla. When a hungry raccoon bites into the packet, the liquid vaccine coats its mouth, immunizing it against the rabies virus. We’re now trying to save raccoons from the rabies outbreak we once unwittingly helped unleash. As far as management strategies for dangerous wildlife go, mass immunization is a pretty gentle one.
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