FYI, according to El Dorado county animal control and the sheriffs dept. skunks are in the feline family and die of feline distemper. We found a skunk exhibiting odd behavior: walking and falling over, going in circles etc. It was shot by the sheriff and taken to animal control for testing for rabies. It was indeed infected with distemper. What a relief. I also found a on line a company that makes a product to keep critters esp skunks away. It is made out of fox urine and is in a pellet from. Fox's are suppose to be skunks natural predators. I sprinkle it around our house and deck have not had an issue of my dog getting sprayed in two years.
--- On Sun, 8/24/08, k s swigart<katswig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: k s swigart <katswig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [RC] Rabies facts To: "Ridecamp" <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Sunday, August 24, 2008, 10:28 PM
Lisa Salas said:
> John didn't say they were immune, only that they don't
> die from it. So does that mean they can be carriers all
> their lives and never suffer from the disease themselves
> but still pass it on?
All mammals that have been infected with rabies can be "carriers"
without showing any symptoms; whether this carrier status lasts for "all
their lives" or not, depends on how long it may take for the infected
mammal to die of something else before showing rabies symptoms. It is,
in fact, the fact that symptoms take some time to show up, that makes it
so people can be treated for rabies after having been bitten (i.e.
infected) but before becoming symptomatic (virus has spread to the CNS)
and survive.
After the symptoms show up (which can take varying amounts of time from
a few days to years but usually from 2-12 weeks), rabies is almost 100%
fatal, and pretty quickly too, even in skunks.
If a skunk is showing the odd behaviour of a symptomatic rabid animal,
it's gonna be a dead skunk pretty soon. However, skunks are one of the
animals that are a known "reservoir" of the rabies virus (bats are
also
a common one), where presumably it takes a while to go from infection to
symptomatic (but I don't know this for sure). But all mammals go pretty
quickly from symptomatic to dead.
For all I know, _I_ am an asymptomatic rabies carreir. Hmmmmm.....
kat
Orange County, Calif.
:)
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