Dead raccoons have gotten a lot of attention in Toronto lately, for various reasons. Many urban areas have abundant raccoon populations, and whenever there are a lot of animals (especially of the same species) living in a relatively small area, there’s greater risk for disease outbreaks. A distemper outbreak is playing a role (maybe
Acyclovir Use in Raccoons With Distemper
In 2021, the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry (NDMNRF) contacted the University of Guelph’s Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses (CPHAZ) about concerns pertaining to the use of the antiviral drug acyclovir in raccoons, specifically for “treatment” of distemper. While only used by a distinct minority of raccoon rehabilitators (maybe
Susceptibility of Wildlife to SARS-CoV-2
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many major agencies took a head-in-the-sand approach to concerns about the potential for SARS-CoV-2 to infect different animal species. Fortunately, over the last year a considerable amount of work has been done to help figure out the range of species that are susceptible to this virus, and shed
Don’t Take One of Those To Go…Raccoons Handed Out Outside a Convenience Store
Lots of things you can get at a convenience store aren’t great for your health, but I wouldn’t have thought we’d have to add rabies to the list of concerns.
Public health officials in Niagara Falls, NY, are trying to track down nine baby raccoons that were handed out by someone outside a 7-Eleven store
Things not to do with raccoons
I’ll hold back and just classify this as “not a great idea.”
How do that many people get exposed to a single raccoon?
Step 1: Take a wild raccoon and try to make it
Drunk raccoons?
Rabies and distemper are the two things that come to mind first when a raccoon is acting strangely. Rabies is a big concern because it can also be transmitted to people. Distemper is also a viral infection, caused by canine distemper virus, and is transmissible to dogs and some wildlife species, but is not zoonotic.
Rabies in a dog, Ontario
It’s easy to get complacent about rabies, even when you live in an endemic region. While we have ample bat rabies, Arctic fox rabies and raccoon rabies in Ontario, spillover into domestic animals is relatively rare. Success can breed complacency, though. When control measures work, it’s easy to forget why they are so important.
That’s
Leftover zoonotic disease Q&A, Part 2
Here are some more leftover questions from the talk I did a talk recently for Third Age Learning in Guelph:
As West Nile virus seems to be spreading, is there a vaccine becoming available for the general population?
Probably not, but that’s just a guess. While it should be possible to make an effective
What’s up with canine leptospirosis
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, this seems to have been a bad year for leptospirosis in dogs in various areas. In at least a few location in Ontario, we are seeing a very high rate of disease, well beyond what we’ve seen before. I was giving some talks in Buffalo the other
‘Tis the season for leptospirosis in dogs
Leptospirosis is a potentially nasty bacterial infection that can cause severe kidney disease (among other things) and is acquired from the environment, in cool damp areas that are contaminated with urine from infected reservoir hosts (e.g. rats, raccoons, other wildlife). It can also potentially be transmitted to people through contact with urine from an infected