Word: raccoon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Humans may be partly to blame. In 1977, according to one theory, Virginia's hunters felt there was a shortage of raccoons in the region. As a result, perhaps several thousand raccoons were imported both legally and illegally from Southeastern states, and some of those animals apparently harbored rabies. Since then, raccoon rabies has been moving outward from Virginia and West Virginia at a rate of 25 to 40 miles a year and has invaded all Northeastern states except Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island. In New York, which now leads the nation in animal-rabies cases (1,761 last year...
Destroying animals, of course, is no way to control the disease. About 60% of the raccoon population would have to be eliminated before the virus would be curbed. A better idea, says CDC's Rupprecht, is to vaccinate wild animals, just as pets are given protection. He helped develop an experimental oral vaccine for raccoons as a research veterinarian at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University and the Wistar Institute, a biomedical research center. The vaccine is contained in bait and dropped into areas where raccoons roam. In tests done in New Jersey, the animals ate the bait, and many...
...watched for 10 days. When confronted with a wild animal behaving unnaturally, people should resist the impulse to help and should notify the police. In fact, all wildlife should be observed from a distance. Says Dr. Mark Chassin, New York State health commissioner: "If a nocturnal animal like a raccoon is on a main street at noon in New York, one should assume it's rabid...
Perhaps, but in the middle of the disaster Midwesterners showed a stunning good humor, resilience and neighborly spirit. It was especially notable in the Iowa capital, Des Moines, which was hit possibly harder than any other big city. A flood along the Raccoon River at the beginning of last week knocked out the city's water-treatment plant. Officials expect to send water for bathing and flushing toilets coursing through the pipes again this week, but there will be no running water safe to drink for an additional three weeks or so. Meanwhile, residents seeking water for any purpose last...
...another week of hauling sandbags, scrounging for bottled water and fleeing for higher ground in nine Midwestern states as the Mississippi River and its tributaries continued to flood. In Iowa, days of rain sent the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers flowing over their banks, inundating farmland and knocking out Des Moines's main water-purification plant, leaving 250,000 people without running water. President Bill Clinton ended a Hawaiian vacation early to tour affected areas. "I've never seen anything on this scale before," he said. Clinton promised to ask Congress to approve $2.5 billion or more in disaster relief...