 Quarantine authorities at these ports inspected over a thousand vessels per year for plague and yellow fever.By 1908, over 5,000 people were detained in quarantine.Hunters were sent to poison the affected areas in Oakland and shoot the squirrels, but the eradication work was limited in its range because the State Board of Health and the United States Public Health Service were only allotted about $60,000 a year to eradicate the disease.