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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Air Attack On Rabies

Dallas Morning News

Wildlife management

They think big in Texas. The latest gargantuan feather in the state’s cap is the world’s largest aerial rabies vaccination program.

Despite waves of planes covering the state to drop bait laced with vaccine, it may take seven years to contain the epidemic that’s been spread by coyotes and foxes.

Officials say the vaccination area will be expanded for the next round of drops in January. That would be the second year of a proposed seven-year program for containing the epidemic, although the disease might be contained in five years.

“Our goal in the first year was to contain the northward progress of the virus and we have done that,” said Dr. Gayne Fearneyhough, director of the rabies vaccination program for the Texas Department of Health.

The rabies quarantine in Texas remains in effect. It prohibits movement out of state of dogs and cats over three months of age and not currently vaccinated against rabies. Raccoons, coyotes, foxes, bats and skunks are also on the prohibited list.

The fox and coyote viruses are dangerous to humans, Fearneyhough says, because both animals tend to come into contact with dogs kept as family pets and those animals, if left unvaccinated, can carry the disease back to their owners.

There is a very large gray fox population in Texas, especially the Hill Country, Fearneyhough says. The spread of the rabies virus in that group could have been aided by a decline in the fur trade nationwide.