AR-News: (US FL) Beasts and burdens

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

By Antigone Barton, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 8, 2004

 
Day after day, Kight tells people how to keep wild animals from becoming 
their problem. She baits and checks traps daily, bringing more than a dozen foxes 
and raccoons back to the office some weeks.
She knows, however, that her efforts won't win the war on rabies. 
"With raccoons and rabies there is no happy ending in sight," Kight said at 
the start of a recent work day. "Trapping is not a solution."
A burgeoning raccoon population -- crowded by development, fighting for 
territory -- is a big part of the problem, she and other wildlife experts say. It 
is a problem people tried to solve by moving trapped wildlife to new locations, 
but that doomed the territorial raccoons to spending their remaining days 
scrounging for food, trying to return home. Since September, moving foxes and 
raccoons has been illegal, because it spreads rabies. 
For that reason, Kight ends most workdays euthanizing raccoons and foxes she 
has found in her traps.





full story:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/auto/epaper/editions/monday/loc
al_news_04b49eb3438821941082.html 
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