Comment by davidw

15 hours ago

Is there something that makes raccoons different than say cats in terms of rabies?

Cats get vaccinated against rabies. I doubt there's one for racoons.

  • Raccoons actually do get vaccinated against rabies. There are large scale programs operated by the US government and state governments that regularly distribute vaccine laden baits from Maine to Alabama, to keep rabies from spreading to raccoon populations west of the Appalachians.

    If a breach occurs they also will trap raccoons and vaccinate them by injection in the area of the breach.

  • Uh, the rabies vaccine is the same regardless of species.

    • Glancing at Wikipedia, there seem to be a wide variety of different rabies vaccines, but, yeah, ones used on animals largely seem to be multi species.

      And there are programs to distribute bait laced with oral vaccines to target, among other animals, racoons. So I guess they are vaccinated, at least in some areas. TIL.

    • Huh, I'd never thought about it like that but yeah, the vaccine should depend on the targeted illness, not the recipient.