By land and by air: Province gears up for summer rabies fight

As summer hits its stride in southern Ontario, the province is preparing to renew its efforts to once again eradicate rabies in Ontario.

Starting next month, rabies vaccine baits will be dropped from helicopters across eastern and southern Ontario, including the Hamilton, Stratford and Niagara areas, the province announced in a media release Tuesday morning.

That's on top of baits crews will drop by Twin Otter aircraft starting this month and into early August across the Golden Horseshoe.

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"These aerial drops primarily target rural or forested areas and aim to prevent the spread and inoculate the local wildlife populations," the release reads.

Kevin Middel, a rabies science operations supervisor, told CBC News that fighting the virus has been no easy task.

"It's a fairly large undertaking. Certainly we knew when we got into this even with the first couple of cases that we'd be [dealing with this] for the next three to five years," Middel said. "And we're still anticipating that kind of timeframe."

Ground crews will also work throughout the summer and into the fall, hand dropping vaccine baits in urban areas and cities across what's been dubbed the "raccoon rabies control zone." Thatincludes Hamilton, Burlington, Brantford, Toronto, Kitchener and Niagara Falls.

The baits look like this:

They're flavoured, and immunize most skunks, foxes and raccoons that eat them.

"If you see baits, please do not disturb them," the news release reads. The province dropped 1.6 million vaccine baits in 2016, and so far this year has dropped 1.2 million.

After almost a decade without a case, rabies returned to Ontario in late 2015. It quickly spread, with hundreds of cases found in animals like raccoons, bats and cats.

The province is now monitoring a huge chunk of southern Ontario for rabies.

The area stretches outward from Hamilton, west past Londonas far as Lake Huron, north to Kincardine, southwest to Lake Erie as far as Long Point. It includes the whole Niagara Peninsula and runs along Lake Ontario, east tothe edge of Toronto.

Middel says the "rabies control zone" is extended by 50 kilometres from any confirmed rabies case. That zone hasn't expanded from any new rabies case since the end of 2016, he said.

According to the city of Hamilton, 250 animals have tested positive for rabies since late 2015.

The virus was discovered after a fight between two Ontario dogs and an aggressive raccoon in the back of an animal control van in Hamilton.

Since then, the province has droppedvaccine baits and testedanimals in an effort to stop the spread.

The province says that if a wild animal gets infected with rabies, ittypically dies a few days after signs of the virus appear. The virus can still be transmitted through saliva up to ten days before those signs appear.

Animals with rabies might lose their fear of humans, become partially paralyzed, become excited or aggressive, or even gnaw or bite at their own limbs.

Here are some of the tips the province is providing to protect yourself from rabid animals:

• Keep your distance and don't touch any animal acting in an odd way.
• Don't touch dead animal carcasses. They can still contain live rabies virus, even when they're frozen.
• Stay away from animals that are behaving strangely or you suspect are rabid.
• Stay a safe distance from wild animals at all times and don't feed them.
• Don't keep wild animals as pets.
• Never trap and relocate wildlife. (It's illegal to move wild animals more than one kilometre).
• Vaccinate your pets.