Posted on 01/22/2013 10:21:49 PM PST by neverdem
As someone who cares for about 100 raccoons a year, Melanie Piazza knows that a listless, placid raccoon is not a healthy one.
"A lot of the calls were, 'There's a raccoon sitting on my porch and he hasn't moved all day, and I open the door and he doesn't move,' and that's not normal," said Piazza, the director of animal care at WildCare, a wildlife refuge in San Rafael and one of several Bay Area care centers baffled in recent years by a rise in strange raccoon behavior.
The centers would occasionally collect raccoons like this and try to rehabilitate them, but their condition would only worsen and the animals would eventually die. Their symptoms were unlike those of any disease the center's staff had seen before.
"After some time in care, a lot of them would lose control of the back end of their body," Piazza said. "They would be walking and their hips would fall to the side. Head-trauma-type injuries can cause that, but it doesn't develop over time. And their eyes had a very different appearance. They seemed to be, for lack of a scientific term, bugging out of their heads."
The mystery affliction stumped wildlife refuge centers, which are on the front lines of dealing with wild animals in the Bay Area. But after veterinary scientists at UC Davis spent two years collecting raccoons from Sonoma, Marin and Contra Costa county wildlife centers, they found an answer: Each of the diseased raccoons had a brain tumor as well as a previously unknown virus.
Tumors are already rare in raccoons, and the emergence of a new virus that is highly correlated with the brain tumors is a...
--snip--
They also all tested positive for a specific virus in the polyoma family, called RacPyV, or raccoon polyomavirus.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Try a half inch slice of corn on the cob with a string tied to it so that the corn is suspended inside the cage near the back. Tie the other end to the door trip lever.
Dogs and cats are not interested in the corn. Often the coon will not step on the treadle but will yank the corn.
Well, I’ve gone thru 4 boxes of honeybuns now(the rain does a number on ‘em) without catching one single raccoon.
Hint: You’re supposed to put the honeybuns in the trap.
Actually, I can’t stand the damn things and I utterly despise Hostess Twinkies! I’m much more of a Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll fancier... ;)
Hmmm, sounds good, I may have to try that. But have you priced fresh corn lately? It’s not exactly the best time of year to buy it. My better half and I were at Wallyworld yesterday-$2.21 for four scrawny little ears of not-so-fresh yellow corn! You think the frozen stuff would work...?
I caught 3 last year with fresh apple quarters but that didn’t work at all this year. My cousin owns 50 acres of woods with a creek across the road from me and says he’s not even seeing any signs of raccoon activity along the banks like he used to.
I’m beginning to think that virus has spread a lot farther than known and has hit them really hard around here.
“Is there anything this effective for libtards?”
An exorcism maybe?
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