The paper presents the rabies epizootic of animals in the Lublin region during oral immunization of free-living foxes. It also includes an analysis of the free-living fox population and systematic hunting of the species during prophylactic vaccination. During the eight years of oral immunization of foxes, the number of observed rabies cases in Lublin region decreased by 76 fold. In addition, rabies has been recently diagnosed almost exclusively in wild animals within the surveyed region. Despite such a significant decrease of animal morbidity, the remaining free-living foxes are the general reservoir of the rabies virus, and the Lublin region is still among the regions with the highest risk of rabies occurrence. In 2009 over 40% of all rabies cases reported in Poland were from the Lublin region. An increase of the fox population occurred in Lublin region during the oral immunization of the species, which directly affected the increase of hunting obtention of the species that became twice as high in the studied period. Despite intensified hunting of the fox population during the investigated period, an over 70% increase of the population was observed, which had negative effects on the small animals population (hare, pheasant, and partridge).
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