BATH — Bath police said Tuesday that a fox killed last Friday in Bath has tested positive for rabies.
According to the police, a pair of dogs killed the fox at a Bath property on Bayshore Road on Friday, Feb. 1. The dead animal was taken to the Maine Health and Environmental testing lab in Augusta where it tested positive for rabies.
The two dogs will be re-vaccinated due to their exposure to the disease and quarantined as necessary, police said.
The incident follows a year of high-profile incidents involving rabid animals. According to the Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention, 101 animals tested positive for rabies in Maine in 2018, which is the most in a single year in more than a decade. Many of the reports came from the Midcoast, with nine of those incidents occurring in Brunswick and two in Bath.
So far in 2019, two other animals have tested positive for rabies — one in Palmyra and one in New Gloucester.
While the state has distributed oral rabies vaccines via bait in northeastern Maine, it was determined that distribution in the Midcoast would not have been effective.
“In terms of landscape management, wildlife management in general typically is focused at the population level,” Tanya Espinosa, spokeswoman for the USDA, wrote last summer. “Rabies management is wildlife management and requires a level of immunity in a population (herd immunity) to be effective. It would not be cost effective or practical to manage rabies in small isolated areas because there is rabies pressure in surrounding populations.”
Rabies is a viral disease that is often transmitted through bites and scratches, usually due to exposure to infected saliva. The disease attacks the brain and can cause erratic or aggressive behavior in the infected animal and can ultimately lead to death.
“We continue to urge the public to keep their pets up to date on their rabies vaccinations,” said Police Chief Michael Field in a statement. “If you see anything unusual or your pets have had any exposure to wildlife, please call your Animal Control Officer and your veterinarian.”
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