Residents of the valley’s smallest town have been on high alert since mid-September when the first of several foxes turned up showing symptoms of rabies.

County officials and organizers for Friends of the Animals (FOTAS) are hopeful that a vaccine clinic this weekend will increase vaccination rates in the town to ensure dogs and cats are protected in the event additional cases show up. 

Four animals discovered by residents in recent weeks were dispatched and collected by county and state wildlife officials. All four tested positive, though residents say additional animals, exhibiting similar symptoms, have shown up since.

Fourteen-year-old Tasha Langley, who found the first of the four rabid foxes, was walking toward downtown to buy a soda from the store when she saw a small kit lying near the middle of Laurel Avenue.

Miranda Thompson, Langley’s mother, said her daughter had only been gone from home for a few minutes when she called, sounding noticeably upset. With questionable cell phone reception in the town, Thompson couldn’t make out what had happened and ran outside to check on her daughter.

“We don’t have the best cell phone service up here, but I was like, ‘I think she got bit by something,” Thompson remembers.

“Finally, I figured out she was saying, ‘I got bit by a fox!’ She had flung it off her hand. … Her dad washed the wound, and then I drove her immediately to the emergency room.”

Thompson said she wasn’t initially thinking about rabies as a possible outcome of the bite, but she worried about infection. The bite happened so unexpectedly, Langley said, she couldn’t pull her hand away in time.

“I was just mainly looking to see if it was OK or if I could help in some way. I thought it had been hit by a car because it wasn’t using its back legs,” she said of the apparently wounded fox.

“I was assessing the situation, but I had a (Mountain Dew) Baja Blast in the back of my mind. … Then the fox walked toward me. I didn’t process that that wasn’t normal and then it just suddenly lunged at my hand and wouldn’t let go. I had to fling it off into the trees to get it off.”

Worried for the safety of neighborhood dogs who might cross the fox’s path, Thompson told her daughter to text neighbor Art Ingraham, who works at The Landing, a community center nearby.

“As soon as we started to drive, I told Tasha to call Art, because he has his dogs over there and he needed to know that there was an injured fox somewhere near him,” Thompson said.

Once in Medford, emergency room doctors immediately started the teen on rabies vaccination protocol — as a precaution — which would include seven shots spread across 14 days. The day after the teen was bit, Ingraham’s dog Shasta spotted the fox near a fence line. The animal walked directly toward Ingraham.

“I caught it under a milk crate. I knew right away that something wasn’t right with it,” Ingraham said.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials dispatched the animal and took it for testing.

“Since then, we’ve had four total that turned up positive and several others spotted that were acting pretty weird,” Ingraham said.

“The state has decided they’re not gonna take them for testing anymore because basically it’s been established that we have rabies here now. … We had one raccoon at the other end of town showing some symptoms, too.”

With a preschool located at The Landing, and a slew of houses in the immediate area, Ingraham voiced frustration at more not being done by local officials. He’s researched ways that other communities deal with keeping rabies at bay, including the use of bait blocks, which contain rabies vaccinations for wild animals.

“I wouldn’t say we’re out of the woods and, honestly, I’m absolutely flummoxed by a seeming lack of concern. … You get the sense if this was happening in Medford, people would think it was a big deal.”

Contacted by the Rogue Valley Times, ODFW officials deferred to Jackson County Health and Human Services, which said it said took the lead in testing the foxes after Langley was bit. Jackson Baures, public health division manager for Jackson County, said the county has not had additional instances of rabies since the initial four, which occurred before Sept. 26. Baures said county officials are hopeful the outbreak has run its course but urged residents to vaccinate dogs, cats and ferrets and to avoid contact with wild animals.

Eliza Kauder of FOTAS said a low-cost rabies and microchip clinic on Saturday would help boost immunity for dogs and cats in the rural town. All vaccines are $20 each, and microchips are $25 each. Kauder said the clinic was scheduled after city officials reached out and expressed a desire for an on-site clinic.

“A lot of people who live in Butte Falls don’t have the finances — including money for gas — to come to the clinics we hold on the other side of the valley, so they reached out to us from the city and asked if there would be any possibility we’d come out there,” Kauder said, noting that library officials were helping residents without computers to sign up for the clinic and that community volunteers had posted flyers around town.

Kauder said registration is required to attend and that location and times for the Saturday clinic will be disclosed upon registration. Dogs, cats, and ferrets should be vaccinated against rabies at three to six months of age. After initial vaccination, a booster is required in one year and then every three years after that.

Under Oregon law, dogs and cats that do not have current vaccinations and are suspected of exposure to rabies must be euthanized or placed under strict quarantine for four months. County and local wildlife officials will be on hand at the clinic event to help with animal licensing — required for dogs six months or older — and to answer any questions.

Ingraham said he’s grateful for the upcoming clinic.

“I think our community has done a really great job working together to keep this thing from getting out of hand. FOTAS jumping in to help, with the assistance of our town government, and a few of our citizens, is a huge blessing,” Ingraham said.

“I sincerely hope our residents will take advantage of it and I hope (county and state authorities) will take notice and look into implementing some kind of program to keep it from becoming a bigger problem. … There’s only so much we as a community can do here.”

To register for the clinic, visit online at fotas.org/clinics and press the “Schedule An Appointment” button; visit the Butte Falls library for assistance; or call Butte Falls volunteer coordinator, Tammie Pulliam at 541-690-0047.

Anyone who finds a bat, fox or other wild animal exhibiting unusual symptoms is advised to take children and pets indoors and call ODFW at 541-826-8774.

For more information about rabies, visit the Oregon Health Authority website or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.