Where the Bluebird Sings

A Wildlife Journal for North Carolina

Friday, July 28, 2006

Rabies Response

Guilford County has had 18 cases of rabies so far this year, mostly in raccoons and bats, though a rabid coyote was captured at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park earlier this month after it attacked a woman and her dog.
The United States Department of Agriculture will begin dropping rabies vaccines baits next month in five counties in western North Carolina in hopes of stopping the westward spread of the disease. The idea is that raccoons, who are not picky eaters, will ingest the baits and be inoculated against the virus. The baits are about the size of a ketchup packet from a fast-food restaurant and have been coated with fish meal, a smell that attracts raccoons.
The USDA hopes that 30 percent of the raccoons in those counties will take the vaccine. But in a program last year, only about 4 percent of the raccoons tested had antibodies to the virus, indicating they had taken the bait. One of the problems, a USDA official said, is that raccoons found plenty of food in nature last year and didn’t have to resort to baits.
If you haven’t had your pet vaccinated against rabies, don’t put it off.
Once a pet is bitten by an animal with rabies, there are only two options: euthanize the pet or keep it in quarantine for six months. A veterinarian interviewed by the News & Record last week said most people opt to have the animal euthanized. They can’t bear the emotional roller-coaster of waiting for six months. Keeping an animal quarantined for that long can cost thousands of dollars.
The Guilford County Animal Shelter offers low-cost rabies clinics several times a year. Their number is 336.297.5020.
Rabies is a viral infection of the central nervous system, meaning it affects the brain. The test most commonly used for rabies – the direct fluorescent antibody test – requires brain tissue. The test can only be performed after the animal is dead.
So get the vaccine. It costs as little as $5 and a few minutes of your time.
For more information on rabies, go to:
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ws/rabies/orv/index.html

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Counting on Crows

Crows: four of them perched on a shelf in the back of the cage, shifting their weight, keeping a wary eye on the humans who spoke in hushed tones filled with awe when they came into the room to have a look at them.
There is something eerie about the way they watch you with those blue eyes, and the way they chortle when they’re fed, a noise that sounds like a happy toddler chattering to himself. Or maybe it is all the myths surrounding crows that give the impression they possess some ancient knowledge.
Native Americans believed that ravens, a close cousin to crows, created the earth. Other myths credit them with creating man and with placing the sun in the sky. And looking at them, those curious blue eyes, which will later turn black, the way they strut about their cage and speak in an indecipherable language, you think it just may be true.
The four juveniles came to the rehab center from Greensboro the first week in May after the tree that held their nest was cut down. They were considered babies though by time they got to us they seemed like big birds, 10 inches tall, but still needing to be fed by hand. When humans approached their cage they’d open their mouths wide and beg for food, making mewing sounds.
Holding them while their cage was being cleaned, I felt their sharp claws dig into my hand. They left a welt but failed to pierce the skin. Neither their claws nor beaks can break through skin; that’s why they’re so eager to partake of roadkill.
Those of us who fed them tried to remain silent in their presence. Crows are quick studies and can mimic humans and other birds. They adapt easily to people, a dangerous trait in animals we hope to release to the wild.
Members of the family Corvidae, which includes ravens, jackdaws, blue jays and a long list of other birds, are among the most intelligent creatures we come in contact with. Often the young play complicated games, passing sticks beak to beak, performing barrel rolls in mid air, hanging upside down from power lines. They cache their food, and studies suggest that they may even “lie” about it, pretending to hide food in front of other crows, then moving it when the others aren’t looking.

The crows were moved to an outdoor cage at the rehab center in June. Last week three of them were returned to the wild.
That same week, a poem by Judith Barrington appeared on the Writer’s Almanac (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2006/07/03/)

It reads in part:

Like most animals, crows tell the truth:
working hard to penetrate our tiny tubular ears, they cackle on telephone lines while we watch TV.
Once I did listen to a crow, but even when I had heard his whole story, there was nothing I could do.
Next, I thought, I'd have to listen to squirrels and coyotes.

Perhaps that’s not such a bad idea.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

They're Nuts
When I hear people say they’d like to have a squirrel as a pet, I think that (1) either they are sadistic, or (2) they just haven’t been in close quarters with an adult squirrel.
The squirrels that are nearing release into the wild from the rehab center are housed in an outdoor enclosure with a row of cages on either side of the walkway. Entering that enclosure with a tray of food is a little like entering a cellblock in a maximum security prison. The squirrels bounce off the walls. They wrap their tiny paws around the wires and seem to leer. They chatter and bicker. They fight over food. They bite.
Squirrels, like other wildlife, aren’t meant to be kept as pets. In North Carolina, it’s illegal to do so. Still, we’ve received squirrels at the rehab center that people have kept until they became ill from improper diets and mishandling. Some have metabolic bone disease from a lack of calcium in their diet and have to be handled carefully so their bones don’t break. One squirrel had to have a hind leg amputated after a teenage boy shot into a nest hoping to bring down a squirrel as a pet for his girlfriend.
Photographs of a squirrel named Finnegan have been circulating on the Internet. Perhaps you’ve seen them: Finnegan sitting on a woman’s shoulder or sleeping with a litter of puppies. The woman intends to release Finnegan into the wild. Chances are, Finnegan won’t survive. He doesn’t know that humans can be his enemy or that another dog could snap his neck. Sometimes the best thing we can do for wild animals is to teach them to fear the things that could get them killed, instead of trying to alter the survival instincts nature gave them