During the late 1970s, rabid raccoons were identified in Virginia and West Virginia after probable translocation of infected animals from the southeastern United States. Raccoon rabies spread throughout the region, with approximately 50,000 rabid raccoons diagnosed to date. During 2003, Tennessee became the twentieth affected state, and the enzootic area now stretches from eastern Canada to Florida
That’s pretty close to our timeline, here in W.MD.
When I was kid in the mid-70s, coon pelts brought good money, and I both checked live traps and brought home the coons to help my dad train his coonhounds.
He also leg-trapped and I went with him for that.
Neither of us felt the need to worry about rabies because coons just were not an issue, back then.
This chart is from 1945 until now with 1982 being the insane jump in raccoon cases
Things were compounded by the neighbor up the hill because he put 20 pound bags of cat food out every single day for the ferals he “loved”.
And everything else came at night to feast and our infamous local endemic began, part of which were the coons that my dad shot in my yard and the three my dogs and I encountered, that terrible day.