Hi All - couldn't let this one slide by....
 
Rabies can be potentially carried by any warm blooded vertebrate - primate,
carnivore, lagomorph, rodent or herbivore!  We had a young man in the army
die of rabies last year after a rat bite (oh, no, rats don't carry
rabies...).  The young man died a very bad death!
 
Reference from Zoo and Wild Animal Medicine by Murray Fowler Second Edition
p. 739 : "Animals reported infected include voles, hamsters, squirrels,
rats, dormice, muskrats, lemmings, ground squirrels, wood chucks, chipmunks
(Eutamias and Tamias spp.), beavers and prairie dogs.  Some rabid rodents
show no aberrant behaviour or they may become paralyzed before death:
others however - particularly squirrels - are reported to be aggressive
and behave abnormally attacking people or other animals.  "
 
Dr. Fowler also speaks of primates and herbivores in other volumes of his
works on exotics.  I do a lot of rehab of deer and gazelles brought in from
the wild and I have to have rabies shots as we have a high rate of rabies
in the small carnivore population, thus, fox bites gazelle, gazelle comes
in with wounds, Bev works on gazelle.... Get the picture.  So folks, don't
ever assume that an strange animal is clean!  When in doubt, get the shots,
they don't even hurt anymore!  (Well, not much anyway, less than tetanus...)
 
Beverly Burge
Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in Jerusalem
Section Head - Hospital/Quarantine Unit
Registrar
[Posted in FML issue 2796]