Rabid killer whale?

desertrat

desertrat

0_0
The rabid kitten article in the Enterprise got me thinking about rabies. After a few seconds I wondered, "Could a whale get rabies? They are mammals after all. If so how would it likely happen?"

I guess someone else thought about this too.

“It’s not as silly a question as you might think,” says Michael Moore, a marine-mammal research specialist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. “It would take some extraordinary circumstances, but any mammal can get rabies.” Bats, coyotes, foxes and raccoons are the most common carriers of rabies but, being landlubbers, it’s highly improbable that any of them would have a chance to bite and infect a whale. One of those animals could, however, bite a seal that’s resting on a beach, and then that seal could swim off and bite a whale. Although there is absolutely no record of a rabid whale, and only one documented case of rabies in a seal—a ringed seal caught in 1980 in Svalbard, an archipelago off Norway—the scenario may soon be of greater concern. “Starting 10 years ago, coyotes began to prey on harp seals here on Cape Cod,”
Click to expand...
 
ICit

ICit

Jam out with ur clam out
desertrat said:
The rabid kitten article in the Enterprise got me thinking about rabies. After a few seconds I wondered, "Could a whale get rabies? They are mammals after all. If so how would it likely happen?"

I guess someone else thought about this too.
Click to expand...



they can... but very very rare
 
Last edited:
kwillia

kwillia

n/a
If you are being bit by a rabid killer whale, I'm thinking contracting rabies is the least of your worries.
 
desertrat

desertrat

0_0
kwillia said:
If you are being bit by a rabid killer whale, I'm thinking contracting rabies is the least of your worries.
Click to expand...

True. I was think more aong the lines of how, in Puget sound for example, people kakak among them. Whale watching boats see them all the time. One rabid one could really increase the chances of having ones day ruined.
 
Moved_south

Moved_south

New Member
You only get rabies in a legitimate whale bite. The body has ways of fighting off the rabies otherwise..... That is why rabies contraction through whale bites are so rare.....
 
kwillia

kwillia

n/a
desertrat said:
True. I was think more aong the lines of how, in Puget sound for example, people kakak among them. Whale watching boats see them all the time. One rabid one could really increase the chances of having ones day ruined.
Click to expand...


Early-stage symptoms of rabies are malaise, headache and fever, progressing to acute pain, violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, depression, and hydrophobia.

:dingding:!!!

Rabies leads to hydrophobia so a rabid killer whale would most likely beach himself... no worries! :yahoo:
 
MMDad

MMDad

Lem Putt
kwillia said:
Early-stage symptoms of rabies are malaise, headache and fever, progressing to acute pain, violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, depression, and hydrophobia.

:dingding:!!!

Rabies leads to hydrophobia so a rabid killer whale would most likely beach himself... no worries! :yahoo:
Click to expand...
Thousands of killer whales roaming the streets are no worries? Are you insane??!!??!?!??!?!?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top