The Wild Dogs of Little Egypt

An outbreak of rabies stirs fear in southern Illinois

On a quiet Friday evening a snarling 60-lb. dog--part shepherd, part collie--sat itself on the front porch of Pauline Maerker's house in the small (pop. 10,000), southern Illinois farm community of Murphysboro. When Maerker's daughter, Ruth Ann, 27, tried to walk out of the house, the animal's angry growl drove her back. When her son, Harold, 42, opened the door, the dog leaped at him. Only the screen saved him. Fifteen minutes later, the police came, tranquilized the dog, then took it away for testing. The animal, part of a pack that had been seen roaming the streets for months, biting people and other dogs, turned out to be rabid. At least six people in town had to undergo painful and potentially dangerous rabies vaccination. In late March, Murphysboro was placed under indefinite quarantine, which means dog owners must keep their pets leashed or penned.

Rabies is one of mankind's oldest and most feared scourges. It was known in ancient Mesopotamia, where a fine of 40 shekels of silver was levied against the owner of any dog whose bite caused a freeman's death (the rate for slaves was 15 shekels). Even today, a century after Pasteur developed the first vaccine, rabies almost always kills its victims unless they are inoculated in the earliest stages of the disease. There were no reported human deaths from rabies in the U.S. last year, thanks to prompt vaccination. But the Federal Center for Disease Control in Atlanta counted 6,405 animal cases in 1980, about twice as many as in the early 1970s and the highest figure in 26 years.

Except for Hawaii, no state has been left untouched. But one of the worst outbreaks is now occurring in the rural counties of southern Illinois. So far this year, officials of Jackson County alone have encountered a dozen rabid animals--dogs, cats, skunks and a bat. Skunks are particularly dangerous carriers of the rabies virus; while dogs usually die within three weeks after infection, skunks survive for up to four months. Ordinarily shy, skunks have attacked dogs and cows, wandered into houses and even chased children in broad daylight.

Two consecutive "skunk winters," when temperatures were so mild that sick animals were not killed off quickly by the cold, are being blamed for the proliferation of rabid animals. But at least part of the problem is that packs of dogs now prowl the roads of an area near Cairo, Ill., known as Little Egypt. Many animals have been abandoned by their owners, often University of Southern Illinois students from Carbondale who simply turn their pets loose when the school year ends. Other pack members are house dogs allowed to go unleashed. In Royalton, Amy Imhoff, 6, was savagely bitten by a neighbor's dogs. In Macedonia, Kevin Zook, 14, was mauled to death by a local farmer's four dogs after he ran out of gas while motorcycling on a country road. Says a Royalton mother: "There are streets you can't walk down any more because of dog attacks."

Angry residents have been demanding tougher leash laws. Some people have taken to shooting any dog, even a neighbor's innocent pet, that wanders onto their property. Meanwhile, dog catchers have been working overtime to round up strays. In one county, 1,400 dogs were caught last year. But almost as quickly as a pack is broken up, another appears.

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