The Quebec government is trapping and vaccinating thousands of raccoons in the South Shore area of Montérégie to prevent the spread of rabies.

It's the second phase of an operation begun this summer after two cases of rabies were discovered in the area earlier this summer.

Officials say they want to nip any outbreak early: it was the first time the specific strain of the rabies virus had been found in Quebec.

"We simply want to extinguish these little fires," said Pierre Canac-Marquis, operations co-ordinator for the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources . "We don't want any kind of expansion of [the] virus in Quebec."

Phase one saw the government air-drop more than 120,000 cookies laced with vaccine into the area. Now the biologists are concentrating on trapping and vaccinating as many as 3,000 raccoons, skunks and cats on Montreal's South Shore.

"Raccoons live very close to man, they could very easily spread the disease by biting domestic cats that also live very close to man," Canac-Marquis said.

The public has been very helpful this summer, he added.

"People are the ears and eyes of this whole operation because we rely a lot on the people to inform us of cases that behave very strangely and would carry rabies."

Signs include animals that froth at the mouth, have no fear of humans or that act as though they are drunk.

Anyone seeing such an animal should call public health officials right away, Canac-Marquis said.