I saw a mother raccoon get hit with a car a couple nights ago. She had three or four young ones with her. One of them also got hit but the others were walking around at the edge of the road.
I thought of picking them up but figured it wasn't legal.
I must say, it was hard to just drive on by, letting them fend for theirselves. They were quite small and probably won't last long. I thought about them the rest of the night.
What is the PGC's policy in this situation?
Is it possible to get a permit tokeep the orphaned young animals in this situation,through the PGC?
I realize many fawns and other young animalsare taken into captivity because people think they are orphaned and in reality, they aren't.
When the mother is clearly dead, does the policy change?
I had that exact same scenario happen many moons ago. The mother got hit and the young ones were moving around her carcass and hanging out by the road. A friend of mine and I tried to jump out and catch the young ones. We couldn't do it. It was dark and they would run down over the hill into the brush. Then as soon as we drove away and came back, they'd be up at the road again. We tried several times unsuccessfully to catch them. Eventually we gave up. Later, they were all dead in the road...as they were not able to recognize that the mother was dead and they continued to cling to her carcass...sad deal there.
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Looney tunes deductive reasoning:
--Me smell Mohican burning
--Me last Mohican
--Must be me!!!
--EEEOOOWWW!!!!!
Unfortunately I saw the same type thing happen here in York Co. 2 or 3 yrs ago. A mother Red Fox and a single pup got hit on Bull Rd. pretty much side by side........over the course of the next few days I think 3 more pups got hit right next to her body lying on the side of the rd.
I know nature is cruel but something like this isn't an act of nature and man did it tug at the heartstrings a bit (and I fox hunt!)
After pup #2 got hit I honestly knew what was going to keep happening and wanted to try and live trap the other young ones I knew were around there somewhere.
But then you get to thinking.......what in the world am I going to do with a fox pup? Is it legal? etc etc. I did nothing and just watched day after day as they got wiped out on that busy rd.
Felt a little guilty.[&o]
One brightnote on the topicis that this is the side of hunters that the general public, non hunters or even anti hunters sadly may never understand about us. How we can be so compassionate toward an animal we may very well be hunting the next day.
You think thats bad, the other day I was heading in town and I saw a cop parked along a field edge and he was standing outside of his car. I went past and noticed a raccoon in the field. Well, when I came back from town the car was gone and there was the raccoon laying in the field...dead with a bullet in her. The sad thing, she had little ones across the road that were hanging off the edge of the tree. It is a VERY VERY VERY sad day when our tax money is spent for these guys to go out and shoot little animals just so they feel better about themselves. I am glad that he was gone because I wouldn't have hesitated in stating my opinion on it. I don't know what happened, somebody probablly saw the coon in the field and figured that it had to be rabid because alot of people are moronic and think that coons will not step foot out of there homes until dark unless they are rabid [:@][:'(]
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"No diggity, no doubt"
Speaking as someone who raised an orphaned Coon.. man can they destroy a house. I was much younger living at home with the folks. Kept it in my bathroom. He liked to crawl under the cabinet and climb up and sleep in a drawer. It wasn't long before the cabinet was shredded the doors were off the hinges. etc etc. He was pretty well grown and mom made me build a cage for it outside. It easly destroyed that and escaped the first night. We saw, what we assume was him, around. So yes he lived that was good..but destructive little buggers.
In Pennsylvania it is very much illegal to ever take possession of any wildlife, even if you know for certain the mother is dead. We do cite people for picking up baby wildlife, too.
Once a person takes take possession of it they and everyone that comes in contact with it becomes subject to disease even if they aren"™t bitten. Just having an animal"™s saliva get on you subjects the person to rabies. We simply can"™t take a chance of a person getting rabies, since rabies is always fatal. Therefore, when we encounter such a situation we have to kill the animal and submit the brain for rabies testing.
Though the chance for some animals to survive, without mom, might be slim, their best chance of survival is still in the wild. Cruel as it might sound that is still the way nature works best. Even if they don"™t survive, nature still takes its course by another animal finding food in the form of predation or carrion.
Wildlife never belongs in a captive environment and that is the only other option to leaving it in the wild.
You did the right thing when you left the wildlife alone, even if the decision to do so played hard on your emotions.
Location: S.W. Pa.-- Heart in North Central Pa. mountains-
Posts: 2,508
RE: RSB...I have a question.
R.S.B......Whoa!!!! Since when is rabies ALWAYS fatal??? It may be fatal to the animal carrying itm, but there is vaccine for people who have been bitten by rabid animals, is there not? I don't understand your response.....
R.S.B......Whoa!!!! Since when is rabies ALWAYS fatal??? It may be fatal to the animal carrying itm, but there is vaccine for people who have been bitten by rabid animals, is there not? I don't understand your response.....
There is a pre-rabies vaccination that people can get that helps prevent the person from getting rabies from incidental contact such as just handling a dead animal that had rabies. Even if a person had the vaccination and then has a positive exposure to rabies, such as a bite or getting saliva into any open wound or mucus membrane, they still need several additional post exposure shots to prevent actually getting rabies.
There is also a post exposure series of shots a person can take after being exposed to a positive rabies contact. They aren"™t as bad as they once were but they still aren"™t much fun, I know I have had them and they really drained my energy levels the day after each series of weekly shots.
You have to have the animal tested as soon as possible because the person has to start the post rabies series of shots before the rabies virus travels through their central nervous system to the brain. Once it reaches the brain, and possibly even before it gets all the way to the brain, the only rabies antibodies known to man are no longer capable of stopping the fatal outcome.
There is no cure for rabies, only prevention and post exposure serum that is actually a controlled mild dose of rabies antibodies. Once a person or an animal has rabies it is always fatal.
The problem comes from people handling an animal that had rabies and didn"™t know it. When people don"™t think they have been exposed to rabies they don"™t get the post exposure shots. Then weeks, months or even a year or longer later (depending on the point of exposure and distance from the brain) they get deathly sick and ultimately end up dying a horribly painful death.
RSB...I have a question.
