A creek in Philadelphia is the site of this new rabid beaver morality play. Apparently a couple was attacked while fishing and a child was bitten on Thursday. Rabies treatments for the people involved have begun. Officials hunted down a 35 lb beaver and it tested positive for rabies. Wikipedia tells me that the only way to confirm rabies is through looking at a slice of brain tissue after the animal is dead. Rabies is a virus that causes acute encephalitis and can be carried by any mammal, though dogs, skunks and raccoons are more common than beavers. The fact that this beaver attacked the wife unprovoked is an indication that it was already in the second “excitative” phase of the disease.
The cause of this beaver’s condition is a bite from another infected animal, and the odds are good that even a mild irritation would cause this yearling to infect anyone in his colony. At 35 lbs he could easily be a disperser, heading out on his own, but it’s likely there are other beavers around either contaminated or about to be. The sad need to eradicate whatever they find is the truly awful part of the story. Let’s hope he was a disperser and not living in a cluster of others, including new kits.
Philadelphia this is your moment to educate the public about rabies AND beavers. It’s time to talk about watching animal behavior to see when they are acting in unlikely ways. That means people need to pay attention and know something about how a beaver, for example, is supposed to act. So start your education there, and talk about the fact that beavers live in lots of urban areas, even Philadelphia, and their dams help create habitat for the smolts that couple was fishing for in the first place.
And for the biologists in the room, can someone explain to me how a beaver reacts to hydrophobia?
