Specimens are being studied by a team headed by Dr. Matti Kiupel at
Michigan State who is an ace with coronaviruses, and did work on
the original ECE (along with Bruce Williams for some of it), on the
earlier announced ECE mutant which behaves like dry FIP as part of
an international investigation, and now on this possible ECE mutant.

The U.S. is full of wildlife if a person just goes to the right places.
Heck, here in NJ in the ridge and swamp geographical region we wind up
with a very wide range of birds depending on the season from finches,
to turkeys, to quail, to geese, to cormorants, to bald eagles passing
through, to egrets, to crows, to cardinals, to warblers, and on and on.
There are some extremely rare martins starting to reestablish. There
are some otters (not enough) and mink (ditto). Of course, there are
weasels. We have eastern coyotes (one of which has taken a bit of shine
to my hubby and will get within 50 feet of him -- except once when she
was after a goose and ran by Steve not 5' away. We have foxes (fewer
grays as the red ones increase in numbers). There are weasels, there
are an assortment of rodents, there are deer. There are shrews; in
fact, we even get to see some on rare occasion. Raccoons and skunks
are common. The list could go on. Obviously, we don't have European or
Steepe polecats, but there are places in the U.S. with BFFs...


Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html

[Posted in FML 6197]