Here’s the latest map of the terrestrial rabies cases in southwestern Ontario.  Raccoon-variant cases still centre on the Hamilton area.  It was never assumed that this particular outbreak would be eliminated quickly, given the case numbers seen in the first several months and the additional challenges of trying to control the spread of the virus in an urban (vs rural) wildlife population. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) has a multi-year plan to hopefully (re-)eradicate this rabies virus strain from the province. Over 270,000 oral rabies vaccine (ORV) baits have been dropped so far in 2017 alone as a major part of the control program, with more to come in the fall.  In 2016, over 1.6 million ORV baits were dropped, and over 4500 animals were tested.  The map also shows the much smaller number of fox-variant rabies cases that have been detected in Perth County, Huron County and the northern part of Waterloo region. Baiting will be done in all of these areas as well.  For more information on rabies in wildlife and the baiting schedule, visit https://www.ontario.ca/page/rabies-wildlife.