Animal control officials twice spotted a fox foaming at the mouth in Chatham on Thursday—a sign that a rabid fox that bit two people in the borough over Christmas may have passed on the disease to other animals. 

Environmental Health Specialist Bill Faitoute made the information public at the borough's monthly Board of Health meeting Thursday, just hours after the fox was spotted in the late afternoon near the New Jersey Transit railroad crossing on River Road. That sighting occurred at 3:45 p.m.

He said the fox had also been seen at 9:30 a.m. Thursday near Fairmount Cemetery. The rabid fox that bit two people over Christmas did so near there—a boy was bitten on Inwood Circle, and a North Carolina man was bitten on Edgehill Avenue.

Faitoute said he was informed of the matter by borough police after police were alerted of the matter by a resident's phone call.

"The fox's mouth was not normal," Faitoute said. "He was frothing at the mouth."

The fox was not captured.

St. Hubert's Giralda Director of Animal Welfare Jacqueline Fahey said she was also notified of both sightings. St. Hubert's dispatched a surveillance truck to the cemetery when the first sighting was reported.

Animal control officers from St. Hubert's have been in Chatham over the past few weeks to monitor the rabies situation.

Faitoute said rabies has a variety of symptoms, and he said people need to watch out for animals that are exhibiting a strange change in behavior.

"A lot of people see them, but they're very elusive," Faitoute said. "When they change their habits you have to be very, very wary."

Faitoute said he warned the manager of Fairmount Cemetery to keep a truck nearby so he has somewhere to go if a potentially dangerous animal comes close.

The manager has said that rabbits and squirrels have been disappearing from the cemetery lately.

In the meantime, the boy bitten on Christmas Eve by the rabid fox has had four rabies shots thus far, and is doing well, according to Faitoute. He will get a fifth rabies shot on Jan. 25.

That rabid fox was shot by borough police after it bit the North Carolina man on Christmas Day. It was found to have rabies the following week.