Date: Wed 10 Jan 2001 19:56:53 -0500
From: ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org>
Source: The Boston Herald / Associated Press [edited]
<http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/otter01102001.htm>
Police Officer Attacked by Rabid Otter
-----------------------------------------
NEW BEDFORD: A New Bedford police officer is undergoing a month-long series
of shots after being bitten by a rabid otter at a city housing complex.
Officer Louis Cabral was bitten 4 Jan 2001 while responding to another
call. "We were responding to a domestic violence call at Shawmut Village,
when all of a sudden this animal came charging out of the woods at us,"
Cabral said. "It starts chasing us and was nibbling at my boot. I just
thought it was someone's pet and brushed it off, and went inside on my
call." When Cabral and Detective James Estrella left the apartment the
otter made another move at them. The otter got up on its hind legs, hissed
and lunged at Cabral, crawled up his leg and bit him on the calf, he said.
The two officers knocked the animal unconscious with their police batons.
Animal Control Officer Roy Holmes took the otter from the scene. "We
euthanized the animal and sent the head to the state lab the next day,"
Holmes told The Standard-Times of New Bedford. State health officials
confirmed that the 3-foot-long, 15-pound animal had rabies.
An 8-year-old girl who lives in the housing complex also was attacked by
the animal earlier the same day, although its teeth never penetrated her
skin. She too is undergoing treatment as a precaution.
When given properly, rabies shots have proven to be 100 percent effective
in preventing rabies in humans. [But if the clinical symptoms begin], the
disease, which attacks the nervous system, is fatal.
"We've heard of raccoons, rabbits, and other animals contracting rabies.
This is the first we've heard of otters. But, the animal control officer
said it was, in fact, an otter. I didn't realize we had them around here,"
said Lt. Richard Spirlet of the New Bedford police. William Davis, a
wildlife biologist with the state, said river otters are common in
Massachusetts. "What is unusual is for them to have rabies," he said. "It
could have contracted the disease from its prey - a muskrat - or from
being bitten by a skunk or raccoon, which are animals you usually see
infected with rabies."
--
ProMED-mail
<promed@promedmail.org>
[This is most unusual. However, I very much doubt that otters eat muskrats
(see above) as otters are usually pisciphilic/fish eaters. Also muskrats
are rather large. As skunks are woodland animals this otter may have
raccoon rabies virus; raccoons are regularly near water. We will not know
until the virus is typed, which I hope
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