beneficial to wildlife that no amount of fox ex- 

 teitnination can substitute foi it. 



Rabies and Red Foxes 



In a report on the work of the Expert Com- 

 mittee on Rabies, World Health Organization, foxes 

 aie listed among the most important vectors of 

 rabies. The Committee's findings (Johnson 1951: 

 214), as related to rabies in foxes, were stated as 

 follows: "As we learn more about the wild animal 

 rabies problem in the United States, we can see 

 the necessity for ecological studies to determine 

 the relative importance of various wild animal 

 vectors in the maintenance and spread of the dis- 

 ease. The epizootic of fox rabies that has been 

 migrating about the eastern half of the United 

 States for the past 10 years shows no immediate 

 prospects of containment and has left many enzo- 

 otic foci of the disease which continue to flare up 

 from time to time. Reduction of the number of foxes 

 in an infected area has proved effective in elim- 

 inating the disease there, but with few exceptions 

 the policy has been to wait until the disease ap- 

 pears before considering to limit the fox population 

 even if the disease is nearby." 



Economic evaluations of rabies in red foxes 

 have proved somewhat evasive because the extent 

 to which the red fox is specifically involved in the 

 rabies problem is largely unknown. The reports of 

 diagnostic laboratories have usually limited fox 

 identifications to the general category "fox." Red 

 foxes were the only ones specifically named in a 

 local outbreak in New York in 1943 (Compton 

 1945:70). In Virginia the majority of the foxes 

 found rabid during a period of high rabies inci- 

 dence in 1951 were gray foxes (Anonymous 1952: 

 4). In Ohio the occurrence of rabies in an out- 

 break discussed by Gier (1948:152) was predom- 

 inantly in gray foxes. All except 1 of 159 fox 

 heads which proved positive for rabies in a study 

 of 419 heads collected during an epizootic in 

 eastern Georgia, March, 1940, to November, 1941, 

 were from gray foxes (letter of May 1, 1952, from 

 Dr. Harald N. Johnson, Division of Medicine and 

 Public Health, Rockefeller Foundation, New York). 

 Perhaps the available reports may be interpreted 

 to indicate that, for any given locality in which 

 foxes are involved in a rabies outbreak, the dom- 

 inant species in the population of foxes is the one 

 most importantly involved. While our concern here 

 is with the red fox, the role played by other wild- 

 life species and domestic dogs in the dissemina- 

 tion of rabies should not be forgotten. 



Irrespective of the degree to which red foxes 

 may be involved, rabies still presents a problem 

 which cannot be ignored in red fox economics. Per- 

 haps of greater importance than economic loss is 

 the mental distress, whether for practical reasons 

 or wholly emotional reasons, of people living in an 

 area where rabies has been reported, and the phys- 

 ical discomfort experienced by those undergoing 

 the Pasteur treatment following an attack. It is 

 certain that losses occur among livestock infected 

 through the bites of rabid foxes. Colson & McKeon 

 (1952:1) estimated that the value of farm animals 

 destroyed after having been infected by foxes dur- 

 ing an extended rabies outbreak averaged in ex- 

 cess of 550,000 a year in New York for several 

 years previous to the time of their report. Gier 

 (1948:152) reported that an undetermined portion of 

 the losses from rabies among livestock must be at- 

 tributed to foxes. 



Experience with rabies epidemics in foxes 

 was recently described by Moore (1950:14): "When 

 rabies breaks out among foxes in a locality having 

 a high fox population experience has shown that 

 the sweep of the disease is likely to continue un- 

 til the foxes in that general area are virtually ex- 

 terminated. This may take from one to three years. 

 Where the fox populations have been promptly and 

 effectively reduced by control measures the period 

 of danger has been substantially shortened in most 

 instances. There is considerable evidence indi- 

 cating that if the numbers of foxes are quickly re- 

 duced by well directed control operations the 

 reduction need not be as drastic to accomplish the 

 desired results as it usually is when rabies is al- 

 lowed to run its course without any control effort." 

 All of which indicates that there might be merit in 

 the encouragement of a program of fox utilization 

 which would obviate the build-up of excessively 

 high fox populations. 



The most desirable method presently known 

 for bringing rabies outbreaks among foxes under 

 control has proved to be population reduction by 

 means of organized trapping. Moore (1950:35) found 

 that "Extermination, except possibly in limited 

 problem areas, is not considered necessary, and 

 even in such places repopulation without [sic; 

 withinPJ a short time would be permissible." Con- 

 tainment of the disease was accomplished in New 

 York by trapping the foxes in broad zones, each 

 about 50 miles deep, around the areas known to 

 contain infected animals (Colson & McKeon 1952: 

 2-3). The trapping efforts were gradually shifted 

 toward the centers of the regions of infection. 

 Steele & Tierkel (1949:10-1) have stated that "The 



