Dogs and cats at risk as epidemic kills raccoons
Published On Thu Feb 18 2010
Raveena Aulakh Staff reporter

If you see a raccoon lying on a sidewalk in the middle of the day, call Toronto Animal Services – and keep your dog on a tight leash.
The animal is likely sick and dying, and could infect your pet with a lethal strain of distemper, an epidemic that has killed hundreds of raccoons and skunks in the GTA since May.
"It's not transferable to humans but there is definitely a high risk to unvaccinated cats and dogs," said Eletta Purdy, manager of Toronto Animal Services. "It's not rabies but it kills quickly."
Distemper is a potentially fatal viral disease similar to measles that affects animals, especially dogs. Puppies and older dogs are more susceptible to the disease, which is spread by food, water, body fluids and feces. Cats are not as susceptible.
Distemper hits dogs in two phases: initially, they experience vomiting and diarrhea, dehydration, excessive salivation, coughing and/or laboured breathing, loss of appetite, weight loss and even pneumonia.
If the animal survives, the virus winds up in the brain. "That's when you see the neurological signs," said Doug Campbell, a pathologist at the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre in Guelph.
"The dog will be wobbly on its feet, the teeth will be chattering."
While most dogs are vaccinated against distemper, if an unvaccinated dog gets infected, its chances of survival are still quite good, Campbell said.
"It's the raccoons and skunks who won't survive this flu."
The outbreak among skunks and raccoons started in the Etobicoke area in early spring last year, Purdy said.
"It is now moving to the south of the city and I anticipate it will move to the others parts of Toronto, too."
Smaller epidemics killed dozens of raccoons and skunks in the early 1990s, but this is one of the biggest and most widespread outbreaks, she added. "This strain has knocked out quite a few raccoons."
Animal Services hasn't compiled numbers yet to compare 2008 with 2009, but Purdy says there was a significant increase in the number of calls to pick up sick or dead raccoons and skunks last year.
Researchers don't yet know if it's a feline or canine distemper strain that is infecting the skunks and raccoons, but the disease has spread quickly because these wild animals range over wide areas.
"It could also be that a (sick) animal was transported from another area and it infected others," said Nathalie Karvon, executive director of the Toronto Wildlife Centre.
"It's hard to say how it spread, but it has killed hundreds every year," she said. How long an infected animal survives depends on its strength, she said.
While the city says it has seen a spike in the number of cases since last spring, Karvon said the new strain is at least four years old. "We've been battling it for a few years."
The wildlife centre, near the Downsview Airport, receives more than 30,000 calls every year concerning wild animals. Karvon couldn't say how many were related to raccoons and skunks.
Winters are tough on vermin scrounging for food, said Ralph Toninger, senior project manager with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.
The population of raccoons and skunks will take a hit, but it's nothing to worry about, said Toninger. Coyotes were hit by a mange outbreak some years ago and many died, he pointed out.
"But they will make a comeback," he said.