By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MIDTOWN WEST — A Health Department campaign to contain rabid raccoons in Central Park appears to finally be working.
Nearly three months after the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene began a vaccination campaign to stamp out the virus, rabid raccoon discoveries have dropped to just two or three a week. Earlier this year, it was not uncommon for numbers to hit double-digits.
“We’ve definitely seen a decrease in the numbers,” said Dr. Sally Slavinski, assistant director of the Health Department’s Zoonotic and Vector Borne Disease Unit.
Before the end of last year, rabid raccoons were extremely rare in Manhattan. Only one was found from 2003 to 2008 — 12 were found in 2009.
But since the end of December, the numbers have skyrocketed. In and around Central Park, close to 120 raccoons have died of the disease so far this year, Slavinski said.
To combat the outbreak, a team of federal wildlife experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture began fanning out across Central Park in February, setting traps to catch raccoons. They were then tested and healthy animals were vaccinated, tagged and released.
Similar programs were also rolled out in Morningside and Riverside parks.
Slavinski said that 237 raccoons were vaccinated by the program, which ended April 9.
But she said the vaccinations are not the only factor contributing to the decline.
Because the disease is deadly and the outbreak was so widespread, there are far fewer raccoons left in the park, she said.
Nobody knows how many raccoons there were in the park before the outbreak began.
Slavinski said the department will resume vaccinating when the next generation of raccoon pups is born later this summer. This should also help to restore the population, she said.
Experts still don’t know how the rabies outbreak began. One theory is that someone illegally released a sick animal into the park. Another is that that a sick animal hitched a ride from one of the outer boroughs or elsewhere in the state, where rabies is more common.
But regardless of how it began, Slavinski urged visitors to remain vigilant in the park and always watch their pets.
Rabies is fatal in un-vaccinated animals and can be fatal to humans without treatment.
