Biologists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been using King Air aircraft contracted through Dynamics Aviation to control the spread of rabies among wildlife, especially raccoons. The practice occurs across multiple eastern states in the U.S, including Georgia.
Jordona Kirby, USDA Rabies Field Coordinator, told local Georgia-based news station WRCBTV that the project started in 1995 and started in Georgia in 2003.
“In the eastern U.S. where we have huge numbers of of raccoons living in close proximity to people, we do see the highest numbers of cases in the US every year,” explains Kirby.
Kirby notes that for a week in the fall several aircraft drop more than 1.5 million of the oral rabies vaccines (ORVs) across the region. The packet resembles a restaurant mustard packet, and have a special attribute to attract wildlife eaters:
“They are coated in a highly attractive fish oil and fish crumbles,” says Kirby. “So raccoons and other wildlife find them to be very tasty and edible.”
The wildlife bite into the packet and are vaccinated upon consuming the vaccine within. It causes no harm to the animal. The success rate has been high; the numbers of rabies cases in northwest Georgia have been significantly reduced in recent years with no cases found in Chattanooga since 2008. Kirby’s office covers a 14-state region, and due to the complicity of the disease it could take 25 to 40 years to completely eradicate it.
“We’re flying King Air aircraft at about 500 feet,” says Justin Reynolds,a USDA rabies biologist. “We’re spreading bait across the northwest corner of the state.”
The planes used appear to be U21 – an older 90 that was born as a Queen Air. Dynamic Aviation owns a large fleet of them that were acquired from the military. The unpressurized cabin (note the square windows) allows for a cargo door to distribute the packets from.
Six weeks after Reynolds and crew distribute the bait from the aircraft, the team will go and catch raccoons from the bait zone and test them for vaccination. Outside possibly some slight stomach problems, the vaccine will not hurt domesticated animals such as cats and dogs.