> Here in Central North > Carolina we have rabies to contend with***. As far as domesticating them, > forget it. An aggressive unruly dog would be a better candidate for > domestication and as a dog lover I don't recommend that either. First, > try to find a local hunter that traps. The hunter will be aware of the > legal aspects of the matter. If you choose the "Politically correct" > solution of trap and release you may be endangering someone else. Wild > animals that have lost their fear of humans can be very dangerous, > especially to children! > You need to man up here a bit... Hopefully Gus will take that with more equanimity than some here might :-). > Transferring the problem to your neighbors is not an answer. I was wondering if there was anywhere benign I could move my rats to :-) Really. In due course I concluded that they had to be destroyed. Something I hate doing to anything if at all possible. Several neighbours and the council became increasingly antse. Feed wheat to the wild ducks and the rats entirely understandably want to join in. Our jungle is a paradise for them - the neighbours claim. But wrt Foxes and Rabies, you could move to NZ, we have neither here. We do have rats. AFAIK NZ is the only significant landmass on earth that is Rabies free. I have had interesting 4 session 2 month Rabies injection course - but that was due to dog bite** in China. Initial shots in China (buttocks, arm)(photos :-)), then boosters at increasing delay in Gold Coast, Canberra (both in Australia) and final shot in NZ. (Went from China to familiy holiday in Australia). ** Do not play rough-house games with Chinese factory Alsatians (even little ones) if you don't want an interesting time :-). Play fighting with dog and got a minor tooth-in-arm wound - and away we went. From then on the dog always wanted to bite me, just for fun, and I had literally to fight it off with a stick. All in fun but a bit hectic. Last time I visited, perhaps 18 months later, the dog was gone :-(. ALL dogs in China are assumed potentially rabid. When they have a major outbreak all dogs in an area may be dealt with, Herod the Great vs Jesus Christ style. Rabies, unlike most other diseases, can often be post infection innoculated for. Pasteur was lucky. A child bitten badly about the face or close to the "core" will die in days, with no hope of redress. Rabies from a bite in a limb that doesn't immediately transfer by blood stream can and often will slowly work its way through the lymph system and prove fatal. In such cases innoculation is liable to work if it gets to the body overall before the slower moving Rabies does. Rabies can take 2 or 3 years to work through the system and then kill. This was only discovered when a person in a (essentially) Rabies free area suddenly died of it. Tracing their movements showed they had visited a high Rabies risk area some years before. People who have with certainty survived Rabies once full blown infection sets in can be numbered on the fingers of one foot. People who MAY have get counted on a hand or two. One girl was bat bitten and developed symptoms. She was put in a full coma, the theory being that the body had to be prevented from dying long enough to allow the treatment to work. It worked. Subsequent attempts to emulate this example failed. It is suspected by some that the infection / version / ... may have been milder than normal. Best choice is to stay away from bats, and small Chinese Alsatians. (Lots of fun though) Russell --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .