Rabies - Rage – Rabbia – Tollwut – Raiva

[Rog]

Going on holiday to Europe soon? Going to encounter wildlife maybe?

 

Really bad news coming from the Near Continent with an outbreak of rabies which began in the German state of Hessen, where it has reached almost epidemic proportions with dozens of rabid foxes - the main carriers of the disease - reported in recent months.

Germany first admitted that it had lost control of rabies at the start of the year, two months after the first reported case in Hessen in November.

 

Birgit Straubinger, a disease prevention officer for the local ministry of environmental affairs and forestry, said: "We wrongly considered the Rhine to be a natural border that wouldn't be crossed by the foxes. This was a mistake."

 

And of course foxes bite other creatures - including kids who might see a 'nice silly fox (hedge-hog or for that matter any mammal) that "seems tame" and "wants to play"'.

 

Full article ---

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html

[Stavros]

Be interesting to hear what the anti fox hunting protesters have to say about that wouldn't it?

 

Stav.

[simon]

no

[Stavros]

I think it would.

 

They don't want these animals to be killed but they've not considered things like this and other reasons why their numbers were kept down to a minimum.

 

I think that it would be interesting to hear their explanation as to how this kind of situation should be dealt with. I also think it would be interesting to know how they would react if they or their children were at risk of getting rabies because there were so many of these animals being infected.

 

If you don't want to know, don't read it. Otherwise, feel free to elaborate on your comment and grunt something else that is equally as scintillating!

 

Stav.

[Rog]

If the same politicians were so dam keen on animal welfare that they claim then they would now be introducing a bill to abolish sport angling.

 

In fox hunting the animal is rapidly dispatched. What happens to the corpse matters not. In sport angling the fish is hooked, generally on light tackle, ‘played’ to the point of exhaustion, pulled out of the water by a hook through the mouth (and there is a growing body of evidence that fish DO experience pan) and then left for hours is a keep net until being weighed and released to suffer the same fate again providing they survive the experience.

 

And THAT is called sport?

 

But of course this government more than any other won’t go near the ‘sport’ of angling. Too much of a vote looser unlike fox hunting where the false assumption that it was a formalised pursuit exclusive to the gentry.

 

They failed to accept that in the majority of cases it was simply a means of keeping a particularly nasty and vicious vermin under control by the thousands of hunts that were not done ‘in The Pink’ but by a group of men bent on controlling a vermin. It didn’t sit with the understanding of The Great Unwashed and so was exploited for political kudos and never mind the number of foxes that now suffer a slow lingering death rather than a rapid dispatch at the Jaws of a powerful dog bred to perform just such an act.

 

Fox hunting? If, or more likely WHEN rabies crosses the channel I can see a law being introduced not only to restore the hunting of foxes with dogs but even subsidies to establish packs of hounds and a bounty on the head of each fox caught.

[Bill Posters]

There was an item on the news the other day about bats. In Britain. Specifically a certain type that live under bridges and hunt on canals. Some of them have been found to have rabies.

[Rog]

O recall an article relating to a recent find in Bury. It was an Daubenton bat that was involved.

 

We’ve got quite a wide population of various species, including the Daubenton bat, around here in Norfolk and the issue of rabies in the bat population is no laughing matter. People hereabouts take the subject very seriously indeed, even more so than TB in badgers and THAT can bring a pause in the conversation in any local pub.

 

We’ve had no cases of infected bats (so far as I am aware) but folks are watching for anything suspicious. . Despite laws to the contrary I know of a number of roosts that have been destroyed.

 

Recently as far North as Bury an infected bat was found. All it would take would be for an infected bat to pass the virus on to a fox or a badger or even into a mouse population and it could take off like wildfire.

 

Relaxation of our borders, massive increase in cross channel traffic, use of trucks rather than trains (so reducing journey times) climate change, all these add together to make things potentially --- interesting.

 

Especially if there is a surge in the number of infected cases on the Near Continent which seems to be the happening.

[Dave the Cardboard Box]

This is a load of nonsense. Rabies has been endemic in mainland Europe for hundreds of years.

 

Why else do you think we had the six month quarantine on importing certain animals, and now animal 'passports'

 

Sometimes it is more virulent than others. There has always been a risk of it getting here again.

 

As for fox hunting, let me tell you again from personal experience, that it is much easier to kill foxes by shooting them. Any farmer worth their salt knows their dens, breeding patterns and runways and it is a simple matter.

 

Hunting with hounds is expensive, inefficient and just an excuse for a day out.

 

Since the ban in February, has the UK been overrun with foxes?. No.

[theintelligentthug]

i entirely disagree with foxhunting, not because of "ooo i think they look cute" but because its a waste of time. and as far as it being banned ruining country lives is a load of tosh.

[Rog]

The REAL reason that I launched this thread was as a heads up to anyone going to the area, especially if they were taking kids with them

[simon]

especially if they were taking kids with them

Are kids particularly susceptible to rabies then? Or is it that they pose a risk as potential carriers?

[Rog]

especially if they were taking kids with them

Are kids particularly susceptible to rabies then? Or is it that they pose a risk as potential carriers?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Kids can not instinctively realise that an ordinarily wild animal behaving in what might be taken to be ‘friendly’ manner or at least not scared of the presence of humans should be treated with the greatest of suspicion and be avoided.

 

The concern being shown by the French and the admission that they are dealing with an ‘out of control’ situation by the Germans should be taken ion board by people and especially families with kids who plan to holiday or even pass through this area.

 

My old Mum always maintained that all mammals east of Dover and West of Peel should be considered to be rabid. I asked her if that applied to the people as well as theywere after all mammals too.

 

She said that it especially applied to the people.

 

.

[theintelligentthug]

haha! ive only ever encountered a rabid animal once. it was a bat. but i was part of the Bat Resue Society and the Entomological society too.

 

i had to bloody deal with it

[Lonan3]

The REAL reason that I launched this thread was as a heads up to anyone going to the area, especially if they were taking kids with them

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

If that's the case, why did you have to include the bit at the end,

 

"They failed to accept that in the majority of cases it was simply a means of keeping a particularly nasty and vicious vermin under control by the thousands of hunts that were not done ‘in The Pink’ but by a group of men bent on controlling a vermin. It didn’t sit with the understanding of The Great Unwashed and so was exploited for political kudos and never mind the number of foxes that now suffer a slow lingering death rather than a rapid dispatch at the Jaws of a powerful dog bred to perform just such an act.

 

Fox hunting? If, or more likely WHEN rabies crosses the channel I can see a law being introduced not only to restore the hunting of foxes with dogs but even subsidies to establish packs of hounds and a bounty on the head of each fox caught.

 

Which, once again, turned a serious post into a political rant?

[Rog]

 

 

If that's the case, why did you have to include the bit at the end,

 

"They failed to accept that in the majority of cases it was simply a means of keeping a particularly nasty and vicious vermin under control by the thousands of hunts that were not done ‘in The Pink’ but by a group of men bent on controlling a vermin. It didn’t sit with the understanding of The Great Unwashed and so was exploited for political kudos and never mind the number of foxes that now suffer a slow lingering death rather than a rapid dispatch at the Jaws of a powerful dog bred to perform just such an act.

 

Fox hunting? If, or more likely WHEN rabies crosses the channel I can see a law being introduced not only to restore the hunting of foxes with dogs but even subsidies to establish packs of hounds and a bounty on the head of each fox caught.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Simply because foxes are likely to be or certainly to become the primary vector of the disease and it will be interesting to see just how fast this –or any – government will back peddle to get rid of the utterly ridiculous legislation that has been introduced allegedly to prevent cruelty to animals but in reality to get traditional labour voters back ‘on song’ even though the effect of this ban is now resulting in foxes facing much worse deaths than before.

 

There ARE more being killed on the roads round here, I have seen foxes lying not only dead but in a coyuple of cases horibly wounded in the fields around my home, there IS a problem.

 

Also because as a true blue Conservative and an absolute Thatcher-ite I utterly detest this dreadful Bleah government and everything that it does with very very few exceptions.