EASTHAM — A dead raccoon that turned up on Smith Lane with a face full of porcupine quills on Nov. 17 tested positive for raccoon variant rabies — a variant that is rare here. This report is the first on Cape Cod since 2021 and only the second since 2013.
Even rarer, perhaps, is the quilling: no porcupine has been seen on Cape Cod in 15 years, according to Brian Bjorklund, a U.S. Dept. of Agriculture wildlife biologist who is coordinator of the county’s Cape Cod and Southwest Mass. Rabies Task Force.
How the raccoon got here, then, is a mystery. It was found covered by a washcloth, which could indicate it was quilled elsewhere and then brought here by someone, said Bjorklund.
Tissue samples taken from the raccoon are being analyzed at the USDA lab in Fort Collins, Colo. to determine which genetic population the raccoon is from. Bjorklund is encouraging anyone who has information about the raccoon to come forward.
“You’re not going to get in trouble,” he said, addressing anyone who might have handled the animal. He just wants anyone exposed to it to receive the rabies post-exposure shots soon.
Rabies is a viral disease; once the virus infects a person’s central nervous system and clinical symptoms appear, it is fatal in 100 percent of cases, according to the World Health Organization. Its incubation period is usually one to three months.
The raccoon was found near the Wild Care facility around 3 p.m. on Nov. 17 by Gionet Hasson, a wildlife rehabilitation assistant at the nonprofit. According to Wild Care Executive Director Stephanie Ellis, the raccoon was not spotted by her staff that morning, suggesting that it was left there in the afternoon.
Ellis noted that Wild Care does not rehabilitate rabies vector species like raccoons but does help find appropriate care for them. She said that the Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable has a facility that can handle larger species like raccoons, foxes, and coyotes.
Raccoon variant rabies first reached Cape Cod in 2004, according to Bjorklund, and by 2006, it had spread to animals in Provincetown. Its arrival led the task force to carry out a Cape-wide rabies prevention program. They used packets of liquid rabies vaccine coated in fishmeal — when predators like raccoons, coyotes, or foxes bit into the packets, the vaccine sprayed into their gums and was absorbed, effectively vaccinating them, said Bjorklund.
The effort pushed the range of rabies back toward the canal by the end of 2013. Since then, there has been only one other case recorded, a rabid raccoon in Hyannis in 2021. Later genetic analysis confirmed that that raccoon had originated in northern Plymouth County, Bjorklund said. Another vaccination campaign was undertaken, but no other rabid animals were found.
Bjorklund said the task force is waiting to see if this animal originated in the local Cape Cod raccoon population. If it did, he said, they would begin a wild animal vaccination campaign in the spring, since the vaccines don’t work in below-freezing temperatures.
If this raccoon turns out to be from a more distant population, the problem of spread would be a consideration if a scavenger or predator were to have contracted rabies by eating it, Bjorklund said. However, the raccoon’s intact condition suggests that did not happen.
The last person to die from rabies in Massachusetts was in 2011 after a bat bite, according to the Mass. Dept. of Public Health.
Bjorklund said that, on the slim chance that this raccoon is evidence of a rabies outbreak on the Outer Cape, “we are encouraging the public to be vigilant, and if you see a sick or deceased animal, please contact your local natural resource officer or animal control officer.”
