Raccoons

Anne Arundel County Health Department officials are counting on a fishy-smelling bait laced with rabies vaccine to help slow the spread of the disease among raccoons.The vaccine disguised in a reeking raccoon delicacy will be scattered through wooded and bushy areas on the Annapolis peninsula in October in a test that, if successful in reducing rabies cases -- and the resultant threat to people -- could be expanded to other parts of the county.Most casesLast year, Anne Arundel County had the most animal rabies cases of any county in Maryland, with 97 animals, mostly raccoons, found to be infected.

Anne Arundel County Health Department officials are counting on a fishy-smelling bait laced with rabies vaccine to help slow the spread of the disease among raccoons.The vaccine, disguised in a reeking raccoon delicacy, will be scattered through wooded and bushy areas on the Annapolis peninsula in October in a test that, if successful in reducing rabies cases -- and the resultant threat to people -- could be expanded to other areas.Last year, Anne Arundel County had the most animal rabies cases of any county in Maryland, with 97 animals, mostly raccoons, found to be infected.

In a rare outbreak of rabies in the city, health officials confirmed yesterday at least two recent cases involving infected raccoons, and residents reported a third rabid raccoon in Northeast Baltimore.Dr. Peter Beilenson, city health commissioner, said last night that one of the cases involved a man who raised a raccoon. No other details were immediately available. Reached at home, Jerome Ferguson, chief of the city's division for environmental health, would not comment.Records from the Municipal Animal Shelter show that a rabid raccoon was found March 12 in a residential back yard in tTC Lauraville, behind Morgan State University in Northeast Baltimore.

DON'T name them the Crows, Buzzards, Rockfish, Old Bays, Middies, Raccoons, Ponies, Bawlamorons, Bangles, A-rabbers, Sea Nettles, Sons of the Colts, Readers or even the Marble Steps.The world is a safer place. Taiwan recognizes China.The city that reads has no need for libraries.And the Oscar for long-distance running to Bob Dole!Pub Date: 3/27/96

It's a situation that pits a wild-animal lover against the state agency designed to protect such animals, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).Howard County animal activist Colleen Layton says she has saved more than 100 hurt or sick animals over the past 18 years. But the DNR says her efforts are illegal, and it has moved to stop her from taking in more wild animals.DNR officials seized four skunks and two raccoons from Ms. Layton's 5-acre farm on Route 99 in Woodstock in the past month, saying she violated state law by breeding the raccoons and caring for the skunks.

If you've seen the movie "Pocahontas," then you got a sneak peek at the newest sports mascot in town.The uniforms of the Baltimore Bandits of the American Hockey League will feature a raccoon-like character with skates and a hockey stick who is based loosely on Meeko, a character in the movie."

I vaguely remember sitting at his kitchen table in Mahwah, New Jersey, telling my brother Tom how much I hated cats. But here was my brother telling me that his future second wife was a cat lover. I prefer dogs, I said. She's beautiful, he said.The one dog in his life had been a mistake, the result of a father's yearning to capture on film the delights of a daughter's face presed against the window at the mall pet store.Long before the dog was buried in a one-gallon Baggie under a back-yard gravestone, Elizabeth had wisely shifted her emotional allegiance to Snoopy -- ageless, immortal and stuffed.

* The presence of rats, raccoons and other varmints may make you reappraise your feed choices. Raccoons, for instance, love suet.* After it snows, sprinkle some seed on the ground so the birds can get to it. A flurry of bird activity around the feeder can be a sign of coming snow.* Try to put some water out and keep the ice broken in sub-freezing weather. The birds need water just as much as they need food.* Put animal hair, yarn, straw, loose wool near feeders for birds to use for nest-building this spring.

Rabies continues to be a health concern in Carroll County, where there have been 12 reported cases this year, county health officials said."We still have an ongoing rabies problem," said Charles Zeleski, the county Health Department's assistant director of environmental health. "We can become complacent if we don't keep in mind the disease is still out there."Mr. Zeleski said 11 of the rabid animals were raccoons and the 12th was a fox.Wild animals are submitted for rabies testing only when they've had some contact with humans or domestic animals, such as dogs, cats, horses or cows.

Carroll health officials are warning residents to vaccinate their pets against rabies after a Westminster teen was bitten by a rabid dog last week."If you protect them [the pets], you're protecting yourself," said Charles L. Zeleski, assistant director of the county's Environmental Health Department.The girl, bitten in the hand by a mixed terrier stray the family took in last summer as a puppy, is undergoing treatment for rabies, he said.Treatment is 100 percent effective if started before symptoms appear, Mr. Zeleski said.