At times nearly overwhelmed by the odor, Anne Arundel County Health Department volunteers traversed the Broadneck Peninsula on Tuesday morning with pounds of fish-flavored bait meant to inoculate raccoons against rabies.
It was the second day of the department’s annual Oral Rabies Vaccine program, in which health department employees volunteer go around the county to distribute pellets filled with the rabies vaccine that are scented to lure raccoons and other wildlife to eat them. Volunteers fling the bait out of car windows, roll them into storm drains and even drop them from helicopters into particularly densely wooded areas.
The program started in 1998 after a year with nearly a hundred animal rabies cases, the highest of any Maryland jurisdiction that year, said Tom Burja, a zoonotic disease specialist who runs the health department’s program. Aside from a two-year gap in 2012 and 2013 when funding ran out, the program has sent volunteers out on the streets and in the air every year to drop bait. This year, about 60 volunteers will drop around 85,000 bait bites over the next month.
Anne Arundel County is the only jurisdiction in the state with such a program.
“The raccoon bites the vaccine packet, the vaccine comes in contact with the oral cavity and saliva and it vaccinates the animal in that way,” Burja said.
Volunteers are trained to plant bait in typical raccoon habitats, such as dense forests, Dumpsters and sewers.
In October and November, the department will ask the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set about 50 traps, anesthetize the trapped animals and take blood samples to test if they’ve taken the vaccine.
“We’ve seen as high as 50% animals we capture become positive for the antibodies against rabies,” Burja said. “We’ve seen as low as 30%.”
While the volunteers are eager to get the animals vaccinated, many also sign up to get out of the office to explore the county. While department employees volunteer to distribute the vaccine, they do get paid for their time.
“I started in July at the health department and the program directors said, ‘You should do this. You can meet other people from different parts of the health department,'” said Brittany Trees, who works in HIV and sexually transmitted infections prevention. “It’s cool to see what other parts [of the department] do because we’re not even all in the same building.”
As the morning went on, Trees looked on the map for ideal drop locations and dutifully marked every spot bait was dropped, after which the department’s iPad would bark back, “Bait drop.”
While Trees logged the bait and Calli Chartrand threw the bites out the window, Victoria Mucciacciaro, who is now in her third year participating in the program, regaled the newbies with the story of the time the prior year when throwing bait down a storm drain a cat jumped out at her.
“We had a good laugh over it,” Mucciacciaro said.
In 2021, the county had six cases of rabies in animals. Since no other Maryland jurisdictions conduct the program, the department knows its unlikely rabies will be eradicated in the state.
“We’ve been approached every year by different jurisdictions either in the state or, usually, nearby states about the program,” Burja said. “No one’s ever really pulled the trigger and moved forward with it, though.”
One prohibiting factor for other jurisdictions could be that the program costs the department about $200,000 a year and takes staff away from their desk jobs, he said. Yet, the program is a highlight for many in the department.
“We always look forward to this time of year when we put this project out on the streets again,” said Director of Environmental Health Don Curtain. “It keeps the incidents of wildlife rabies at a low number so that people’s pets and the humans that are out in the county or walking in the parks aren’t exposed to rabies.”
If a dog or cat comes across the bait, the animal may get an upset stomach or diarrhea due to the high fat content in the fishmeal encasing the oral vaccine, Burja said. The department advises pregnant and immunocompromised people to not touch the bait but hasn’t heard of reactions worse than a rash as a result in humans. The volunteers wear gloves when distributing the bites.
“It’s generally seen to be very safe across the board,” Burja said.
Burja and Curtain said they like to use this program as an opportunity to remind people not to touch wild or stray animals. Raccoons are not always as cute and cuddly as they seem.
“We have people that invite raccoons into their homes and feed them popcorn, watch TV with them,” Curtain said. “It’s an aggressive animal when it wants to be.”
