Proclaiming some of our Urban Wildlife heroes and villains:
Fame: New York City. For vaccinating city park raccoons to eliminate rabies, instead of attempting to eliminate the wildlife. Excellent.
Shame: The State of North Carolina. Shame on NC for continuing the statewide ban that refuses rescue and rehabilitation care to native wildlife. And for denying licensed professionals their right to provide it – while still allowing hunters and trappers to handle banned animals such as raccoons, because of “the high value of raccoons as a sport and furbearing animal”. Isn’t it a double standard to allow the handling and killing of a potentially rabid animal by amateur hunters and trappers, yet deny your state licensed wildlife specialists that are trained in how to provide rescue when needed to do so? The former pays a fee, the latter does not. This math is too simple, and the question was rhetorical.
Despite the risk declared in handling these animals, and even the fact that animals are sometimes inhumanely skinned while still alive, trappers are not required to have training or even pre-exposure rabies shots in North Carolina. They simply need to purchase a license.
If rabies in the wildlife is such a risk to their public, why isn’t NC vaccinating the wildlife? Take a page from NYC, or the growing list of other states that have successfully protected their citizens, wildlife, and domestic animals via vaccinating wildlife. Also take note from the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. They reversed their Bans a decade ago. It wasn’t because rabies went away. It was realized that Bans do not protect the public; they actually put people at greater risk.
Is this not historic precedent? Compassion, ethics and personal moral standards are difficult if not impossible to legislate. If a Samaritan finds an injured or orphaned wild animal and seeks a professional to help it, only to be told there is a Ban against doing so and therefore this animal must be killed, what will most Samaritans do next? The majority will (and do) break this law.
Any state or municipality that places bans against the rescue and rehabilitation under the guise of protecting the public is now gambling against precedent and hypocrisy. By denying Samaritans options for qualified assistance they are gambling that citizens will not violate personal ethics. That Samaritans will abide by the law and remain safe while they carry to their backyard and kill that crying baby raccoon, skunk, or fox that they found.
Good luck with playing those odds.
Rabies, distressed wildlife, rehabilitation, and other urban wildlife topics will be discussed in future articles. If you find wildlife you believe is in distress, please contact a rehabilitator and seek their expertise before doing anything that could further risk its survival, or placing yourself in possible jeopardy.
Comments
Yeeeeeeah NYC!!! 2 thumbs up from Texas!
As to NC..talking about stone ages! NC certainly beats many states in neglecting to preserve nature's resources. How many hunting permits were sold though? You can kill it but you can't have it or help it?
Thanks to the author for getting the word out! I hope you can shake some folks awake and make a difference. It surely is needed!
Excellent article. Indiana has some of the same irrational thinking. The DNR is now proposing a rule to compel rehabbers to kill all raccoons over 13 pounds and all coyotes over 20 pounds. Yet, trapping and hunting is allowed, despite the DNR playing the "rabies card" whenever they can. Query: Is anyone more likely to be bitten by a raccoon or a coyote than a trapper trying to kill it while it's captured in a leg hold trap? Answer: NO.
It's obvious you don't believe hunting has a place in wildlife management despite the vast majority of wildlife biologists and every state wildlife agency that say otherwise. But to promote the idea that hunters are at a great risk of rabies to push a public policy agenda is strange. Here is a direct quote from the CDC on contact with rabies infected animals.
"Contact such as petting or handling an animal, or contact with blood, urine or feces does not constitute an exposure, and therefore no post exposure prophylaxis is needed in these situations."
I guess the experts at the CDC are in the stone ages as well?
Hi Tom
At this time hunting MUST have a place in wildlife management, regardless how any one feels about it. No debate. I support lawful, humane hunting. Many hunters practice that ethic. The issue is with those that do not, and the double standards that SWA's allow.
A browse of youtube, coon-dog training websites, trapping sites and videos, statistics on translocation of rabid (live) raccoons by NC hunt clubs (Am Jour of Medicine) and other scientific papers... Absolutely live, wild raccoons are handled by hunters, inhumanely, and in ways that risk the public, dogs, and native wildlife when sick ones are shipped.
Your CDC quote is great. Actually, doesn’t it substantiate the point that assisting orphaned wildlife is not risky enough to ban doing so?
Glad to have your perspective, Tom. Again, I agree. Society does not have the stomach to handle how Nature would balance wildlife if hunting stopped. It is now about humane vs inhumane, and double standards. We can do better.
Kudos for exposing the ones trusted to handle OUR wildlife for monetary gain!
Allowing we rehabbers to do our jobs is of the utmost importance. I regularly encounter game wardens delivering baby or injured raccoons that do not know how to handle a raccoon, nor what to expect in behavior from that particular creature. If our game wardens don't know, how can one even speculate that the general public does? Yes. Wild animals can be very dangerous even when small, but those with experience know what to do and when.
Thank you for your excellent column.
Raccoon Orphanage
doryandtheorphans.com
we are born free, now live to serve, we are the LBA, so mums the word
lawbreakersanonymous.com
@ Tom:
Here is another quote from the CDC "most people are exposed to rabies due to close contact with domestic animals, such as cats or dogs." and "The number of rabies-related human deaths in the United States has declined from more than 100 annually at the turn of the century to one or two per year in the 1990's" ,
while 100+ people are kill annually in the US by hunting accidents. Where is the REAL danger?
How is killing what you don't like/want/understand a form of "management"?
Hunting has its place and no one said there shouldn't be hunting,we would just like to be able to rescue and rehab the same animals hunters are allowed to kill.The wildlife is all of ours not just the hunters.Tom you must have missed the topic of this article.
What is your idea of "lawful humane hunting"? Hunting is what causing the overpopulation of deer due to compensatory rebound effect and the hunting industry and many hunters know this. We don't need ANY "deer management" the only thing they are "managing" is enough deer to kill for sports.
"Historically in all states, including West Virginia, hunting regulation have been restrictive during the period of deer restoration with mainly short buck-only season to protect does and encourage deer population growth" " Fundamentals of Deer Management W. VA.
That is why the hunting industry rejects deer birth control even though it works and its safe. "Humane" hunting does not exist. We know for fact bowhunting is the cruelest form of hunting but shotgun is just a cruel. I view tons of hunting videos and seen the deer death and it's horrific. There is not such thing as "humane" hunting and "deer management" is a sham.
more statements about "adding" deer from hunting websites.
P.129 "With supplemental feeding, it becomes very easy to maitain artificialy high deer densities and still obtain adequate results in terms of antler and body growth." Producing Quality Whitetails Revised Edition
Al Brothers and Murphy E. Ray, Jr. Edited by Charly McTee
" Thus, does are healthier, reproductive
success is higher and more does are able to carry two fawns. Ironically, this can result in a greater deer harvest each year." Quality Deer Management
"With high quality habitat and increased nutrition, the percentage of doe fawns that breed their first fall increases (sometimes up to 25 percent).. Also, a higher percentage of yearling does produce two fawns instead of one." Quality Deer Management
"We strive to maintain a deer herd that each year that can provide quality sport to more than a million hunters." PA Deer FAQ
Hunting also kill humans from Deer Vehicle Accidents which is the highest during hunting season plus all the deer produced for their sick self gratification of destroying life so DNR can rake in blood money. Look at those states like W.VA and PA high in DVA's yet they have hunting to "reduce" it? How many years have they been killing and DVA's are as high as ever?. In fact DVA has risen 18% since 2002.
I have lost many of my sweet deer friends here because of hunting and I don't believe that any animals should die for blood money and human amusement of destroying life. NY wants dove hunting now, how much more wildlife do they want to add in their agendas. I thought you were better than that Katherine McGill
Tom
Pro-Kill State Wildlife Agencies have their own pro-kill "wildlife biologist". Puleez!
You are all nothing more then monsters who enjoy destroying life that is why you are out there with your "smack down" or "when it's brown it's down" and DNR Division of Nature Rapers supports this disgusting act because they are all run by hunters aka wildlife serial killers.
Tom
Pro-Kill State Wildlife Agencies have their own pro-kill "wildlife biologist". Puleez!
You are all nothing more then monsters who enjoy destroying life that is why you are out there with your "smack down" or "when it's brown it's down" and DNR Division of Nature Rapers supports this disgusting act because they are all run by hunters aka wildlife serial killers.
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