Rabies is spreading in LI's raccoons, and workers are responding with vaccine bait

Raccoons will eat just about anything, especially if it's covered with cod liver oil and fishmeal crumbles.

That’s what health officials on Long Island are hoping, as workers distribute hundreds of thousands of fish-flavored packets containing rabies vaccine into wooded areas, culverts and other places raccoons like to gather.

Vaccine baiting for raccoons is an important weapon against a wildlife rabies outbreak that started in Nassau County in 2024 and spread into Suffolk County last year. Since February 2025, 49 cases of terrestrial rabies have been documented in Suffolk County — in 47 raccoons and two cats.

Before that, there had not been a case since 2009, officials said. Terrestrial rabies cases do not include bats, which also carry the virus.

Most of the cases were clustered in Amityville, with a few in Lindenhurst, Deer Park and Wyandanch. But over the past few months, they also have been found farther east and north in Babylon, Bay Shore, Islip, Northport, Smithtown and Kings Park.

A raccoon picked up in Manorville in June after an encounter with a local resident tested positive for rabies. Health officials believe it likely was relocated from another area since its location was far from where other raccoons with rabies were found.

Preventive measures

With surveillance, vaccine baits and free rabies shots for pets, the county is trying to hold the line.

Rabies is a potentially deadly virus that is transmitted via the saliva of an infected animal. That can happen through a bite or by the infected saliva getting into an open wound, eyes, nose or mouth, according to the state Health Department.

While fatal human cases of rabies are rare — the last one in New York State was more than 30 years ago and involved an encounter with a bat — they also can be avoided with prompt medical treatment.

Suffolk County already has distributed about 240,000 vaccine bait packets, and Nassau will put out more than 144,000 by Oct. 9.

“The goal of the bait program is to provide herd immunity,” said Meghan Davis, a veterinarian and chair of the master of public health program at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But you are not going to catch every member of the herd. … It’s about serving as a line of defense.”

The vaccine baits are making a difference, Suffolk County Health Commissioner Dr. Gregson Pigott told Newsday.

He said U.S. Department of Agriculture staff trapped and tested blood from numerous raccoons in the areas that were baited last year to determine the effectiveness of the program. The tests showed 26% of raccoons showed an antibody response, above the average of 10-15% that the USDA typically finds following a first-time baiting program.

Staying away from wildlife is the best way to avoid any kind of illness, state officials said, advising people to contact a rehabilitator if they believe an animal is sick or injured. If a person or pet is in contact with or bitten by a wild animal, they should seek immediate medical treatment and contact their county's health department.

Companion dogs, cats and ferrets must be vaccinated against rabies under New York State law, the first shot no later than four months after birth and the second within a year later. Booster shots are required at different intervals, one year or three years, depending on the animal and vaccine.

Vaccinating pets

Davis pointed out that while the baiting program is designed to reduce how many wild animals become rabid and infectious, dog and cat vaccines protect people by providing a shield around the animals most likely to infect them.

“Especially if you live on Long Island,” said Carly Fox, senior veterinarian for urgent and emergency care at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center in Manhattan. “If you let your dog outside or if you have a cat that goes outside, they can experience interactions with wildlife that you just don't witness.”

Both counties held several free rabies vaccination clinics for pets since the first cases of the local outbreak were discovered in Nassau County in 2024. That included four raccoons and two stray cats.

In early 2025, as cases started to rise, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman suggested raccoons with rabies may have crossed over from Queens because New York City did not perform rabies vaccine baiting in 2024.

The city Health Department said it didn't have the funding that year to continue the program but also said there is no way to determine "how and where rabid raccoons are moving or being moved by people." It also pointed out there was rabies vaccine distribution in southwestern Nassau County in September 2024.

Nassau and Suffolk started active surveillance programs, having raccoons tested that were found dead or appeared sickly or disoriented. Since raccoons have acclimated well to urban and suburban environments, seeing them during the day foraging for food is common and not a sign they are ill.

The number of terrestrial wildlife rabies cases in Nassau jumped to 27 in 2025 — 26 raccoons and one stray cat — and then dropped to one raccoon so far this year.

In a statement announcing the latest round of baiting, Nassau Health Commissioner Dr. Irina Gelman called the decline in confirmed rabies cases “encouraging.”

“Following the return of rabies in 2024, NCDOH implemented extensive rabies control efforts, including an expanded oral rabies vaccine baiting program to help vaccinate raccoons and other terrestrial wildlife against the virus,” she said. “Those highly successful efforts have continued.”

Occasional outbreaks

These local outbreaks generally last from one to two years, followed by a decline in the raccoon population due to deaths from the virus, the state Health Department said. The population rebounds in about five years, sometimes causing “periodic flare-ups” of rabies.

The dynamics of exposure between humans and raccoons is changing and becoming more challenging, especially with people who feed colonies of stray cats every day, said Gary Whittaker, a professor of virology at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine.

Those caretakers are in contact with cats that sometimes end up sharing resources with raccoons — putting them at a possible risk of contracting rabies, he said.

“People want to take care of the cats and they put out food for the cats, and the raccoons are taking advantage of that,” he said. “It’s also allowing an increase in the raccoon population.”

Whittaker was one of the authors of a study that examined how raccoons in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery acclimate to the environment and interact with other animals.

“They are incredibly successful, smart animals,” he said. “We’ve got pictures of a raccoon and a cat sharing the same food bowl, side by side.”