Susan Gladin entered her yard in rural Orange County Monday to see her dog playing with a skunk. At first she thought it was cute, beautiful even, and snapped a picture of it. Then she called her dog and stepped off the porch. That’s when the skunk attacked.
“I’m a very experienced animal person and I was just blindsided by how quickly the thing moved,” she said.
The skunk scratched Gladin on the ankle, so she called 911. They put her through to Orange County Animal Services, who brought the animal to their lab. The skunk tested positive for rabies — the third positive test case this year.
Seeing this third case isn’t cause for alarm, said Orange County Community Relations Director Todd McGee. Instead, it provides an opportunity for education and awareness in the community about rabies, vaccinations and what to do after an encounter with a rabid animal.
Rabies affects the nervous system and gets transmitted through saliva or contact with nervous system tissue. In the southeastern United States, raccoons act as the host animal for the rabies virus. Other animals that contract the disease get infected due to scratches or bites from an infected host.
The number of rabies cases ebbs and flows, said Bob Marotto, director of Animal Services.
The lab saw six positive cases in 2016 and 10 positives in 2015. These totals are a significant decline from the 23 laboratory-positive cases in 2014.
The fluctuations are a result of changes in the raccoon population and therefore the genetic diversity, Marotto said. Changes in diversity include changes in the number of traits governing sufficient immunity to diseases like rabies.
