A Hartland boy who was bitten by a rabid bat in his bedroom recently has prompted the Department of Agriculture to once again educate people on the disease, rabies.
Dr. Jim Goltz is Manager of Laboratory Services and says the only way to detect rabies is by dissecting an animals brain, but the behaviour is the key in identifying a potentially rabid animal.
“Animals that are normally only out in the evening or during the night if you see those animals out on the daytime and they are being quite active that is an abnormality in behaviour,” stated Goltz.
There are a few species in the province that are most likely to carry rabies, they include, skunks, raccoons and foxes.
In fact, there was a raccoon variant of rabies found in southwestern New Brunswick a few years ago”.
Goltz also says ” If you see a raccoon or skunk and it has porcupine quills on its face, chances are it is rabid because those animals would never normally go after a porcupine.”
There is also an old wives tale that the sound of running water will drive a rabid animal into a frenzy.
Goltz says “There is some truth in that because the old name for rabies was hydrophobia and a rabid animal will not drink water because it has paralysis of the throat muscle and it is unable to swallow and will choke, so the sound of water will cause animals to react if they have rabies.”
