This August, government airplanes and helicopters have been dropping tiny parcels from the sky for raccoons to find. Each one is about the size of a ketchup packet and contains an oral rabies vaccine that coats the mouth of the animal that bites into it. The vaccine is the United States' best bet at limiting the spread of rabies — one of the world's deadliest diseases.
The bait-drops along the Eastern U.S. are part of a massive effort to stamp out rabies, which originally infected domesticated dogs brought to North America by European settlers in the 1700s. Until 1960, dogs accounted for a majority of the rabid animals in the U.S. Today, raccoons, bats, skunks, and foxes are the most common carriers.
