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Rabid raccoons popping up in Boston; five so far
By adamg on Fri, 08/18/2023 - 1:28pm
Boston Animal Care and Control reports five rabid raccoons have been recovered of late in Boston - most recently on Mission Hill:
On August 14th, Boston Animal Care and Control was notified that a raccoon found near Hillside Avenue in Mission Hill tested positive for rabies. This is the fifth raccoon recently reported as rabies positive in Boston. Three raccoons were picked up in Jamaica Plain and one raccoon was picked up in Roslindale. At this time, there have been no reports of rabies exposures or injuries in humans related to interactions with any of these wild animals.
The department says this is more proof, if you need any, to stay away from and not feed wild animals, to report any you see behaving strangely - at 617-635-5348 - and to make sure your pets' rabies shots are up to date.
The city will be holding free rabies-vaccination clinics for dogs and cats at the Curtis Hall Community Center in Jamaica Plain, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 16t and at the Tobin Community Center on Mission Hill, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 30th from 10am-2pm.
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
Is BPHC still testing
Is BPHC still testing wastewater for Covid?
If only you had access to the
If only you had access to the Internet and a search engine
https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2023/08/2023-08-18_ww_re...
Of course
And since Boston is such a minuscule city, BPHC's sole employee is spending all his time just collecting samples, because the tradition in Boston is that every single municipal department is set up and staffed to do exactly one task at a time.
Neighborhood Results?
Do we have results by neighborhood? Seems like Boston collects data, like neighborhood covid data and Mass and Cass stats, but either does not post the dashboards so the public has the results, too, or does not publicize how to see current numbers.
It would be great to have transparency.
Assuming you mean Covid wastewater, not rabid raccoons ...
Then, yes, the city posts data here, including numbers from the 11 neighborhoods in which it takes weekly samples.
If I was a sole sample collector...
I'd be eating edibles all day long
The question is …
…. what do they test YOU for?
Yes.
Yes.
Trash Panda Flu.
Trash Panda Flu.
Magoo sez
One time Magoo was tested for hallozingpooperbing. Hallozingpoopbing is a condition where one hops up and down on one leg and then dry heaves. Magoo fortunately has never hopped up and down on one leg and then dry heaved so Magoo was tested negative for hallozingpoopbing. Magoo.
I’ll take 5 rabid raccoons over …
… a Magoo any day of the week.
Imagine a world if you will...
Where Magoo and Costello are indeed the same person
Lol!
Hmmmn!
I’m just asking questions here, but….
… can anyone confirm that they’ve ever seen... Adam and Magoo in the same place at the same time?
Actually ...
Adam writes all the comments. Including this one.
We are all adam.
We are all adam.
bostnkid rabid racoon story
(reprinted from 2008 post)
https://www.universalhub.com/node/17994
drunk racoons
By bostnkid on Fri, 10/24/2008 - 10:23am.
i saw one walking down the middle of comm ave in newton one afternoon several years ago.it was raining and the racoon looked very disheveled.he was practically walking sideways. i was worried he might be rabid.
i called 911 and they told me not to get too close but try to keep him in sight until they arrived. i just sat in my jeep and followed him up comm ave towards boston college. he turned into one of the sidestreets. the cop showed up pretty quickly. she got out of her cruiser and came over to me. i showed her where the racoon was. he had gone into the front yard of one of those big beautiful victorians on comm ave. the cop and i walked into the yard and saw that he was just sitting in the corner. she told me to stay where i was and that she was going to the cruiser to get some equipment.
she returned with one of those poles with the loop on the end for catching dogs. she walked over to the racoon and put the hoop over his head. he immediately started to struggle. she asked me to step back.THEN SHE TOOK OUT HER 9mm HANDGUN AND SHOT THE RACOON IN THE HEAD. she threw his limp body into a little cage and put him into the trunk of her cruiser. she thanked me for calling and left. i was stunned. i couldnt believe she just shot the little sucker. so, if you're a racoon, you're rabid and you find yourself in newton, make sure you're wearing a bulletproof vest, and helmet.
Kindest thing she could do
If an animal is rabid, putting them out of their misery is the kindest thing for them - rabies is a horrible death - and keeps them from passing it on to other animals and people. In addition, they need to do a necropsy on the animal's brain to confirm the diagnosis.
She should have not done it…
…. in front of a kid.
My partner grew up in a rural
My partner grew up in a rural area. As a kid, he witnessed pigs getting slaughtered and participated in the slaughter of chickens. It’s ok for kids to see death
Death is one thing.
Slaughter is another thing.
Some people are not affected by the sight of it, some people are turned on by the sight of it. Many people are very much upset by it.
The commenter clearly was of the third group. The officer gave no warning what she was going to do, no explanation, no thought for the child.
Not her place to give demonstrations of execution to children. Her indifference bordered on sadism. She should have had the child leave or turn away.
"child"
In the story, the author writes:
"i just sat in my jeep and followed him up comm ave towards boston college."
Children don't own jeeps. Teenagers might, but a teenager is not the same as a little kid.
I grew up killing chickens
What was more unnerving was plucking the feathers even though they were already deceased.
kids
she gave me a plastic deputy badge and a lollipop after she blew his head off. 3 years of intensive therapy and now i hardly ever wake-up screaming in the middle of the night. just never play that horrible beatles song around me.
Didn't realize you were a kid at that time
Yes, she should have warned you what she had to do and why, and had you leave the scene before doing that.
From bostonkid’s posting
“I sat in my jeep.”
So old enough to drive?
i’ve been on UHub for 16 years Bob
are you really spongebob square pants?
Rabies PSA
Something I didn't know until long after it happened to me: If you are ever woken up by a bat that has strayed into your bedroom, you are supposed to consult your physician because you cannot be certain you were not bitten by the possibly rabid bat while still asleep.
I assume they will treat you for rabies exposure regardless, just to be sure. Because:
It's not at all a "wait and see" type of infection.
My friends are going through that right now.
Woke up to find a dead bat in the bedroom. They and their cats are now going through the shots because bat might have scratched or bitten them without them knowing.
If the cats hadn't been up to date on their rabies shots they would have been euthanized. Warning to people with indoor cats - you should keep them up to date on rabies shots just in case of a situation like this.
Racoon rabies treatments
I had a similar experience when I lived in Foxboro. But the cop in that case just pulled up and slowly rolled the wheel of his cruiser right over the disoriented racoon.
Ghastly!!
Not all disoriented mammals have rabies.
It's for many reasons
If I was a racoon, I'd stay clear of any town called "Foxboro".
I had a similar experience too
In Burlington when I was probably around 14 or 15. A neighbor walking her dog saw a mopey raccoon between the street and the stone wall in front of our house during the day and called the the Animal Control Division, who arrived a few minutes later with a police officer. The cop asked the mothers to put the littles who had gathered around to watch into their houses and asked everyone else to stand back and behind him by like 75 to 100 feet, as he had to shoot it because, per the ACO, it was clearly rabid. As he shot it, I remember the cop yelling "F**k! f**k! The poor little guy!" The ACO put the carcass into a box to be taken to the state for testing, and then gave the very distraught cop a hug and pat on the back and told him that it was a kindness that he did (it ended up testing positive for rabies). A year or two later, my brother saw a raccoon in our yard during the day, and called animal control, who came again with an officer from the BPD They both took one look at the raccoon and the ACO said "she's fine, she's just very pregnant, is about to have a litter, and is probably looking for a place to nest". A few weeks later, my brother and I saw the same mama raccoon with three or four kits looking out at us from a den inside the hollowed out side trunk of a tree fork in an old maple tree at the edge of our yard about 20 feet above where my brother first saw her.
Disturbing
The kindest thing to do with a rabid animal is to kill it as quickly as possible. No doubt about that. But it's horrifying that she shot it in front of you without giving you a chance to look away.
(I also really, really hope she sprayed the area down with disinfectant. Shooting it in the head guarantees that infectious brain tissue is spread over the pavement! And now I'm wondering about aerosolization, too...)
Of course! It was hydrophobia!
Well, I guess I've found the answer to why Rocky's doctor came in "stinkin' of gin" after all these years. He didn't want to spook the poor raccoon.
A neighbor’s dog bit my father …
…. when he was a child. My grandfather contacted the police and insisted the dog be put down and tested for rabies rather than have my father suffer through the shots. The test was negative. They moved out of the neighborhood soon after.
My father felt sadness even late in life remembering it.
Rabies Vaccine
I just went thru it for possible bite (bat in house) son caught it and let it go. Had we kept it and had it tested may not have needed the shots. The 1st one was billed at 16K. Thankfully insurance picked up the tab...