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Whitfield County: Bait-drop targets raccoon rabies this weekend

By: Kevin Cummings
(Contact)

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Keith Wehner

DALTON, Ga. — On Friday afternoon at Municipal Airport here, rabies vaccine bait-droppers studied maps of Whitfield County as they prepared for another round of battling rabies in raccoons.

Keith Wehner, rabies field coordinator with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program, said Friday’s bait-drops in Whitfield County are part of a three-day effort this weekend in northwest Georgia and parts of Alabama and Tennessee.

Officials planned to distribute 30,000 oral rabies vaccination baits in portions of Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade, Walker and Whitfield counties.

“We’re flying from sunup to sundown,” Mr. Wehner said. “I’m not sure how many flights that is but it keeps us busy for three full 12-hour days.”

Each plane has a pilot, a bait-dropper and a worker who unloads the bait so the dropper can keep distributing the vaccine packets, which are coated in fishmeal. In urban areas, bait distribution will be completed by hand.

Ninety percent of rabies cases in the United States are found in wildlife, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Raccoon rabies is only found in the eastern U.S. and officials want to keep it that way.

“(Raccoon rabies) is found along the Atlantic seaboard and is already in the Appalachians, and we’re trying to keep it from moving any further west,” he said.

Mr. Wehner said the annual bait-dropping program is drastically reducing reported cases of raccoon rabies. This is the sixth year Georgia has participated in baiting.

Chad Mulkey, Whitfield County environmental health manager, said a man was bitten by a rabid fox earlier this year. A Murray County family was treated after tests showed their puppy was rabid. The owner of that dog said he suspected it may have been bitten by a raccoon.

“I wouldn’t say rabies is prevalent but we know it’s out there (in the wild),” Mr. Mulkey said.

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