chukhug said about rabies in racoons: “One thing that I find interesting is that when you look at this chart showing the distribution of rabies in raccoons, the cases seem to be concentrated almost exclusively in the states along the East Coast.”
That’s because there is a rabies epidemic in East Coast coons. It started about 10 years ago when some “hunters” transported racoons from Florida (where rabies was endemic in the coons) to Virginia. The transplanted racoons spread rabies to the local animals and it’s been spreading north and west ever since. The spread west seems to have stalled out in Ohio, and in general things are much better than they were several years ago.