AUGUSTA – Based on the success of a wildlife rabies control program begun in 2001, Maine and New Brunswick public and animal health officials have scheduled a border airdrop of vaccine-laden bait.

All this week, more than 100,000 baits are expected to be dropped, according to state officials.

More than 64 cases of raccoon rabies were discovered in New Brunswick between September 2000 and March 2002. Since then, no cases of raccoon variant rabies have been detected, a success attributed to the bait program.

In New Brunswick, the program involves live trapping, vaccination and release of wild raccoons, skunks and feral cats.

New Brunswick and Maine are working cooperatively to create a barrier along the border so infected animals cannot travel into Canada.

“We want to work with our partners as part of this widespread project,” Agriculture Commissioner Robert Spear said in a prepared statement.

“Here in Maine, the bait is being dropped from fixed-wing aircraft along the Maine and New Brunswick border from Houlton to Vanceboro,” he said.

All of the states in the Northeast and the provinces of eastern Canada have participated in the program. The fish-laden baits are airdropped and raccoons eat them and become vaccinated against raccoon rabies.

Spear said state and federal officials have been tracing rabies in wildlife populations for a number of years. Rabies in bats, raccoons, skunks and foxes has been documented in nearly every Maine county. In 2003, 82 positive cases were reported; 36 were in raccoons.

Data show that rabies is moving through populations of raccoon and heading northeast in Penobscot, Washington, Hancock and Aroostook counties.