Wednesday, November 12th, 2025

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Wednesday, November 12th, 2025

Breaking News for

Sportsmen Since 1968

Vaccine program involving raccoons in Pennsylvania helping stem the spread of rabies

U.S. Department of Agriculture biologists examine a raccoon, looking for rabies. Over the years, public health officials have tracked a western migration of raccoon rabies within Pennsylvania, but numbers have declined throughout the state in recent years. While raccoons are native to Pennsylvania, it is believed that rabies was introduced through raccoons translocated from down south about 50 years ago to train hunting dogs. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture)

A raccoon baiting program aimed at stemming the spread of rabies is now underway in western Pennsylvania for the 22nd straight year.
Through early September, oral vaccine doses wrapped in fishmeal or a vanilla-flavored waxy substance are being dropped from helicopters and fixed-wing airplanes over less populated parts of the state’s western counties and distributed by hand around abandoned lots, under dumpsters, down storm drains, and in woody sections of public parks. The goal is to eradicate rabies in western Pennsylvania and keep it from moving further west into Ohio, and the effort appears to be working.

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