Update: Potentially Rabid Raccoons Spotted Around Town

Mayor Nelson Vaughan said residents have reported seeing raccoons exhibiting strange behavior and said some of those raccoons could potentialy have rabies.

The news comes after a rabid fox bit a young boy and a man on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the borough. Police later shot and killed the animal.

Test results of the fox's remains released Wednesday by a Trenton state lab confirmed the fox had rabies.

Police and borough officials have asked members of the public to report animals that are "falling down, turning in circles, biting [themselves], convulsing, or exhibiting unprovoked aggressive behavior," as a borough police department news release put it. And Vaughan said some residents have begun to do so.

"Several people have called me and told me they've seen raccoons around here—in the woods around here—that they're pretty sure are rabid," Vaughan said.

Vaughan said animal control officers from St. Hubert's Giralda Animal Shelter in Madison have come to Chatham to assess the situation and to see if they are able to find any raccoon nests where rabid animals living.

St. Hubert's officials could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, the two fox-bite victims are expected to make a full recovery. The North Carolina resident, who was attacked on Edgehill Avenue, has already traveled home and is back at work, Vaughan said, and the nine-year old—who was bit on Inwood Circle—has been resting and taking the proper medication to ensure further rabies-related complications do not arise.

Police made automated phone calls to all borough residents Wednesday to make sure they are aware of the situation.

Vaughan said Wednesday the fox acted aggressively when it went on its mini-rampage—the fox ran right at a borough police officer who found the fox after it bit the North Carolina man. But police were able to shoot the animal before it acted again.

He also said he was told the North Carolina man was running up to the home where he was staying, trying to get away from the fox, but the fox did not let up in its pursuit. Rabid animals generally act more aggressively than their healthy counterparts.

Inwood Circle and Edgehill Avenue are directly across Fairmount Avenue from one another, which means the fox crossed the relatively busy thoroughfare at some point during Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Fairmount Cemetery is right near both locations, and Vaughan said the cemetery's manager had told him he had noticed rabbits he had seen living in and around the cemetery area had recently started disappearing.

"There's no more rabbits left," he said Wednesday.

He said the fox may have come up to town from the banks of the Passaic River, just below the cemetery.