March 1, 2005
By Anne Minard
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A skunk's notorious stink won't kill you, but an untreated case of rabies could. And unvaccinated pets are especially at risk.
Animal control manager Bonnie Lilley had trouble believing the numbers when they started coming in: five rabid skunks by the end of December. Twelve in January. Nine in February.
Pima County is reporting more skunks testing positive for rabies in the last two months than in the last three years combined.
"This started happening right after I came into this position," said Lilley, manager of the Pima Animal Care Center. "I kept looking at it going: 'This is not right. This is not normal.' But I wasn't being a panic monger. It truly is happening."
The onslaught of cases may or may not coincide with a spike in the skunk population. While that's been observed in other places, neither the county nor the Arizona Game and Fish Department monitors the skunk population here.
Business has been brisk for Christopher Clark, an employee of Animal Experts Nuisance Wildlife Control in Tucson. Clark said he has spent a lot of time trapping healthy skunks and relocating them out of the city limits. If they do show signs of rabies, he takes them to the county instead.
"I deal with skunks lately almost every day in some fashion or another," he said.
Whatever the reason, the effects of the scourge have hit home for a handful of Tucson residents whose pets have tangled with skunks that turned out to have rabies.
Some pet owners have opted to quarantine their animals, as required by state law. Others have spared themselves hefty boarding costs by having their pets killed. So far, no domestic animals have actually turned up with the disease.
The rabies cases are scattered throughout the city's outskirts, with pockets around the popular Agua Caliente Hill area, northeast of Tucson; at Gardner Canyon, just north of Sonoita; and near Three Points, southwest of Tucson. Lilley is crossing her fingers that the worst is over - the virus usually gets around the most during skunk mating season, which is now waning - but she's not making any promises.
"We do worry about it spreading," she said. "We didn't just have them in the Redington Pass area. We have had them west now, and southeast. We've had a little bit of spread."
Regardless of what happens with skunks, Lilley and other wildlife managers are now bracing for what is usually the hottest time of year for rabid bats, April through September. Last year the county recorded 40 rabid bats - more than in any year going back before 2000.
Human rabies is rare in the United States - the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an average of two human deaths from rabies a year. However, the disease is always present in Tucson's wildlife populations. In most years, skunks and bats lead the tally of rabies cases - trailed by sparse numbers of rabid foxes, badgers, bobcats and coyotes.
Several Tucson residents underwent vaccinations after being bitten by rabid bobcats in January 2004.
Whereas the danger of contracting rabies through family pets is real, bats pose threats even to indoor animals - because they can more easily get inside houses - and into the hands of children.
"Sometimes the kids will find that the bats are up on the walls at school," said Mark Soto, an enforcement operations officer with the county. "One might handle the bat, pass it around. We even had a case where a parent brought one into school for show and tell."
People who fear they've been exposed to rabies should get medical attention. If treated before the onset of symptoms - usually weeks after exposure - the prognosis usually is good.
In animals, the test for rabies is a brain test and requires killing the suspect animal - except in cases when domestic animals can be quarantined and observed for six months.
That's a hard choice to face for pet owners - which is why local animal managers and veterinarians are urging pet owners to make sure their pets' vaccinations are up to date. Janet Muller, a veterinarian at Broadway Animal Hospital, has six dogs in her care now that are under long-term quarantine because their owners either saw them tangling with skunks that turned out to be rabid - or found a dead skunk in the yard and suspected the pet had been exposed.
"The reason these dogs are here is because they were not vaccinated," Muller said. "The only other thing to do would be to put them to sleep and check them for rabies."
Boarding an animal can cost between several thousand dollars and more than $10,000, depending on the facility. And while there are scores of animal hospitals in town, relatively few are willing to tie up the extra kennel space needed to house a potentially contagious animal - and put their employees in close quarters with a possibly rabid pet.
If pets are vaccinated and come into contact with a rabid skunk, state law requires those animals be quarantined for 45 days, and that can be done at home.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/wildlife/63554.php
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43070
