The effect of variations in the carrying capacity of red fox habitats on a spatial spread of rabies is studied using a two-dimensional finite code in a uniform rectangular region with zero flux boundary conditions. Results of an earlier one-dimensional finite difference simulation are confirmed. For sufficiently small carrying capacities it is shown that the intorduction of rabies will not produce an epidemic wave. For sufficiently large carrying capacities disease will spread with a speed which increases with increasing carrying capacity. Initial population crashes also become more severe with higher carrying capacities and epidemic redrudescence is increasingly delayed.
Population crashes in high density populations are so devastating that extinction becomes probable.