2010 Animal Rabies Summary
In Canada, rabies testing and surveillance is performed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). National data for 2010 are now available and indicate there were a small number of cases in domestic animals, with more in wildlife, for a total of 123 cases.
Dogs: There were three cases, all in Saskatchewan.
Cats: Four cases, three in Manitoba and one in Alberta.
Horses: One rabid horse in Manitoba.
Cattle: One, from Manitoba.
Skunks: 60 cases, 33 in Manitoba, 17 in Saskatchewan and 10 in Ontario.
Bats: 48 rabid bats, most in Ontario (29) but also in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Foxes: Six from the Northwest Territories or Nunavut.
No rabid sheep, goats, raccoons (down from 58 in 2007), wolves or other species.
Manitoba seems to win the 2010 rabies prize, while Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and the Yukon had no cases.
As with any disease surveillance, these numbers underestimate the scope of rabies. For an animal to appear on the list, rabies had to be considered and testing performed. So, for wildlife, it's a massive underestimation of the number of cases, since most affected wildlife don't get tested. Wildlife testing (and testing in general) is typically only done when there has been the potential for human exposure. Domestic animal cases are probably a fairly close representation of the status of rabies in pet and farm animals, since it's reasonably likely that a domestic animal with rabies would be identified as such and tested (although certainly cases can be missed or neglected). As with wildlife, there is probably an under-identification of rabies in feral/stray dogs and cats, since testing would only be done on these animals if they are caught and if there was potential human exposure.
2009 US rabies recap
2009 animal rabies statistics have recently been published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Blanton et al 2010). Here are some highlights:
- 6690 rabid animals were identified, along with four human cases. (One of those human cases was associated with travel to India, as described as described in a recent post).
- Rabid animals were identified in 49 states and Puerto Rico.
- 92% of infected animals were wildlife. Raccoons were the winners (actually, the losers, I guess) with 2327 cases, followed by 1625 bats, 1602 skunks, 504 foxes, 300 cats, 81 dogs and 74 cattle.
It is important to remember that these are rabies diagnoses, not all rabies cases. Certainly, more animals died of rabies and were not tested. These numbers may represent the "tip of the iceberg," particularly for some wildlife species. This can impact on the accuracy of the relative numbers between species, and year-to-year changes in cases, but doesn’t change the fact that rabies is present, widespread, relatively common and can infect a wide range of animal species, including pets. It also highlights why vaccination of pets is still important.
How to remove a skunk from a pool
This morning, as my dog Meg and I went out to get the newspaper, she ran towards our pool fence, barking (pretty unusual for a dog that is afraid of chipmunks). I wondered what the issue was until I saw a black and white tail sticking out. The pool has been closed for the season and there was a skunk standing on the cover. The cover's about 1.5 feet below the deck and the skunk couldn't get out.
After going over various options, like putting things in for the skunk to climb out on (unsuccessful), getting a live trap (too lazy to go find one), scooping it up with the pool skimmer net (a matter of how badly I'd be sprayed, not whether I'd be sprayed), getting a wildlife removal person in (too cheap to get someone else to do it) or lacing food with a sedative, I came up with the following plan:
- Find a large garbage pail with a handle. Tie a long rope to one handle.
- Place the garbage pail on its side in the pool, with the handle tied to the rope on top.
- Lure the skunk into the pail (e.g. with food) or, as I did, herd it in using a LONG pole.
- When the skunk is inside, pull on the rope to tip the garbage pail back up.
- Cover the garbage pail. A plastic kiddie pool works well.
- Carefully but quickly lift the covered garbage pail out of the pool.
- RUN... upwind.
It worked for me... no guarantees however.
