Wednesday, June 20 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Wildlife and
diseases
“Never let a mouse live
in your house; they will steal
the breath of your children.”
That’s a saying that I heard
came from the people of the
Hopi Nation, an accurate
description of the symptoms
of the hantavirus. They appar-
ently recognized the role wild
rodents play — a long time
ago — in the spreading of
diseases among the human
population of the earth.
If you decide to rid your
home or property of wild
rodents, please do not use
chemicals. When an animal
dies from poison it usually
won’t be found and will lie in
a dusty corner until someone
smells the rotting carcass. In
the meantime other diseases
are spread.
A live trap is best, then
the animal can be taken a
couple of miles out into the
forest or sagebrush habitat
and released. The good old
Victor snap trap rarely fails
to capture and kill the rodent.
Handle it with throwaway
plastic gloves and if you have
a septic tank flush it down
the drain. The body is actu-
ally good food for a septic
tank. Wash the area where it
was trapped with disinfectant
or alcohol. If there’s no septic
tank, place body and gloves
in a plastic bag and discard
for trash pickup.
The recent death caused
by hantavirus in Deschutes
County is a deadly reminder
of what being careless about
rodents can cost. Hantavirus
is a respiratory ailment,
caused by breathing in the
virus carried in rodent urine
or droppings.
Several years ago there
was a similar tragedy involv-
ing a child on the Warm
Springs Reservation and a
different disease — bubonic
plague. The family’s pet
cat returned home with a
Towensend’s ground squirrel
it had killed and left it on the
front porch. A flea carrying
the plague got to the young
lady and the doctor treating
her apparently didn’t recog-
nize the infection for what it
was in time to save the child’s
life.
Since that time, plague
has occurred in rural and
semi-rural areas of the
western United States, pri-
marily in semi-arid upland
forests and grasslands where
many types of rodent species
can be involved. Several spe-
cies of animals, such as rock
squirrels, wood rats, ground
squirrels — including our
much-loved golden mantled
— prairie dogs, chipmunks,
mice, voles, and rabbits can
be affected by plague, and
both wild and domestic car-
nivores can become infected
by eating infected animals.
People who allow their
cats to wander around out-
side are particularly suscep-
tible to plague, as the cats can
be infected by eating infected
rodents they kill. Sick cats
pose a risk of transmitting
infectious plague droplets to
their owners or to veterinar-
ians. Several cases of human
plague have occurred in
the United States in recent
decades as a result of contact
with infected cats.
It’s those charming little
voles that I do all I can to
avoid, especially if they’re
still alive and moving about. I
do not enjoy killing anything,
even the disease-carrying
rodents so common around
the sagebrush and juniper
land I live on. But I’m always
astounded by the number
of voles I find in castings
(pellets) left behind under a
hawk or owl’s nest, and par-
ticularly grateful they are
15
PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
Deer Mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus, just about every carnivore’s prey,
plus a carrier of several diseases that plague man.
so proficient at reducing the
vole population.
Then there’s the poor
old jackrabbits. Right at the
moment they’re undergoing
their cyclic population die-
off from the ravages of tula-
remia. For the last five years
we have seen a good-sized
population of jackrabbits as
we explored the Great Sandy
Desert and adjoining coun-
tryside for golden eagles. It
wasn’t uncommon for us to
see at least 15 or so jackrab-
bits in a three-mile run across
the sagebrush and bitterbrush
countryside. Today we’re
lucky if we see one for an
entire day.
Tularemia is a wildlife
disease you do not want to
come into contact with. It is
highly contagious and kills
most mammals that become
infected with it. I can recall
several years back of two
rabbit-hunters dying of tula-
remia when they decided to
barbecue a couple of infected
rabbits.
In addition to hantavirus
and bubonic plague being
carried to us by wild rodents
there’s hemorrhagic fever,
lassa fever, leptositosis, lym-
phocytic chorio-meningitis,
omsk hemorrhagic fever, rat-
bite fever, salmonellosis and
probably some stuff from
overseas we haven’t a name
for yet.
I’d suggest contacting the
Deschutes County Health
Department if you capture
and kill a rodent you don’t
recognize, the informa-
tion may fit into a mystery
they’re working on. Call
541-617-4705.