Two yellow mongooses were spotted wandering along the road near Monument Primary School, mixing happily with nearby dassies.

Darting back and forth across the road, the animals seemed to be at home in the area.

Residents living in the vicinity should ensure that their pets are vaccinated against rabies as a precaution, as they are known carriers of the viverrid strain of rabies.

Yellow mongooses are generally regarded as problem animals in areas where their habitat overlaps with human settlements, because they will take hens’ eggs and free-ranging chickens, but are normally deterred by the wire netting around the runs.

Yellow mongooses are a natural ‘reservoir’ of the viverrid strain of rabies, which they are able to carry asymptomatically for years while spreading it and infecting others animals. The high prevalence of rabies in the species is because they often occur in high densities in confined burrows, which promotes incidences of transmission. Source

The viverrid genotype virus in yellow mongooses is not modified in any specific way that will restrict spill-over from wildlife into canines. However, behavioural factors and population densities appear to limit this cross-infection. Source