From the Harford County Health Department:
On Tuesday, May 19, 2015 the Harford County Health Department (HCHD) was notified by the State Public Health Laboratory that a cat submitted thru the HCHD Environmental Health Services Rabies and Vector Control Unit office tested positive for rabies. The cat originated from a feral cat colony on Scarboro Road near the Harford County Waste Disposal Center where it was being fed along with other stray and feral cats.
A resident in the area brought the cat to a local veterinarian when she noticed that it was behaving unusually. The veterinarian recognized these symptoms as being consistent with rabies, euthanized the cat, and submitted it to the Health Department for analysis.
Rabies is a deadly viral disease that must be taken seriously and risk of a rabies exposure is definitely a concern in these situations. Other cats in this area could possibly be incubating the rabies virus if they had contact with this cat. The highest risk of exposure is from a bite or scratch of an infected rabid animal but there is a slight risk of exposure through touching or handling as well.
If you have been bitten, scratched or licked by any stray cats in this area within the last six months, please contact the Harford County Health Department’s Communicable Disease Division at 410-612-1774 so that a rabies risk assessment can be conducted.
Is this pack of feral cats on private or public property? Trap, neuter, release is a ridiculous wrong headed notion based on false statistics provided by cat obsessed people with nothing better to do than feed these colonies in the wild – it’s not good for the cats, not good for the environment and sure as heck doesn’t reduce the populations. I personally know a farmer that gets hit up by these people all the time to take more cats – that’s how they report these colony populations reductions by shifting these cats around. Now we have rabies and I’m sure this isn’t the first time, nor the only disease that get’s spread through these herds of cats, most of it hidden from the health department by the cat people. We need local regulations to limit this activity or at least require licensing of cats in the same way we do for dogs – and make sure the local shelter isn’t being used as a pipeline to let these cat people “reclaim” the unadoptable ferals setting them lose who knows where. The best way to reduce feral cat populations is to humanely euthanize as many feral as you can trap; they aren’t pets and unfortunately are invasive to the environment – to do otherwise is to chose cats over wildlife including songbirds.
Loosen up you tin foil beenie girl it’s makin you crazier than usual.
TNR doesn’t work? Someone should do their homework. Humans are responsible for the overpopulation of these feral cats which originate from dumped non spayed/neutered domestic pets. Let’s take the easy way out and kill everything, isn’t that our solution to all animal related problems? I would love to see how the rodent population grows once these cats are destroyed.
Utter nonsense. Yes, humans are responsible but that doesn’t mean native wild species have to pay for that irresponsibility. Cats are not native and have profound impacts in the environments where they live. Want to explain to me how cat hoarding outside holds irresponsible pet owners responsible. It doesn’t. I’m sure the neighbors and pet owners near the dump are just overjoyed knowing this exercise has now resulted in a rabies outbreak.
#6 lead will fix them!
Nathan Winograd is the messiah behind the “no kill” movement which is almost entirely fixated on justifying and maintaining millions of cat colonies. Believe me all the people involved in maintaining the Scarborough colony worship this guy. His followers want to seize control of local shelters and pressure local governments into passing local ordinances supporting their crazy activities. Witness the insanity:
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/04/14/18644737.php
Someone seems to have a lot of pent up anger towards felines… the list is long for species that are non native to MD do you suggest the same fate for all of them? and while we’re at it humans do the most harm to the environment let’s get rid of all of them, after we seize the shelters and take over the government of course.
No sane person would suggest we neuter and nick the ears of a snakefish because that would be recognized as ridiculous. Fish and game created a bounty on the fish because it created actual incentive to remove damaging invasive animals from the environment. Feral cat meet Snakefish because it’s no different.
Open season on feral cats would solve this problem and be a boon to native bird populations.
According to some: Tastes like chicken
Stop wasting money. Simply charge a $5.00 stamp and let folks shoot the cats. Feral cats on the shore have destroyed piping plover and oyster catcher populations because they nest directly on the ground. Now beaches are closed when they nest because they are endangered.