MONTREAL -- Quebec wildlife officials will strategically place vaccine-laced cookies just outside Montreal to create an artificial barrier to keep a virulent strain of raccoon rabies out of the city.
The latest vaccination campaign begins at the end of May, when officials will bait areas frequented by raccoons and skunks to create a 10-kilometre-wide belt along the city's south shore.
Montreal officials fear raccoons will spread rabies to pets.
Teams will drop bait in hot spots and repeat the exercise in mid-August, when newborn raccoons born this month are able to chew the cookies.
"We will probably vaccinate between 70-75 per cent of the raccoons in this area this way," said Pierre Canac-Marquis, a spokesman for the Quebec's Natural Resources Department.
The disease reached within 40 kilometres of Montreal last year. Officials in Montreal have been briefed on a the worst-case scenario that rabies does reach the city. This particular strain of rabies is irksome in urban areas because of the threat it poses to common household pets, Marquis said.
"The problem with this one is that it can be transmitted to cats and dogs, and raccoons are in very close contact with these pets," Canac-Marquis said.
"... Our fear is that eventually it will be transmitted to a dog or to a cat and this is where the situation could become dangerous for humans."
-- The Canadian Press
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