The distemper epidemic continues unabated in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Many types of urban wildlife of susceptible to this terrible disease. This Mink—a likely victim of canine distemper—was found in the Great Trinity Forest near Pemberton Hill Rd.
Pictures courtesy Ben Sandifer.
Sad. Such a dreadful disease – so much suffering. I know periodic disease outbreaks in wildlife are not rare, but I’m wondering what might have caused the current epidemic to take hold like this. Reminds me of the raccoon rabies epidemic we had here in Manhattan a few years ago – it’s amazing to see an epidemic in action, its speed and gathering ferocity. Of course, with that epidemic, there were serious public health concerns for humans as well.
From what I’ve been able to determine–and this is mostly hearsay–the epidemic is centered around the Lake Highlands area north of White Rock Lake. If true, it is likely overpopulation played an important role in the spread of this disease… On a number of occasions this past year, I have found evidence of an extremely high concentration of Raccoons living along White Rock Creek. I suppose its possible they just reached a tipping point, Disease is one of the ways nature deals with overpopulation.
Overpopulation was certainly a factor in NYC’s rabies epidemic. Before the epidemic, I was seeing raccoons blocks away from the park, hanging out in the trees on a busy Manhattan street. Others were reporting regular raccoon trash can robbers right out in the open, again on very busy city streets. Clearly, the population was pushing outside the limits of Central Park and Riverside Park. There are still plenty of raccoons, but since the die-off, they seem to keep to the greener, more natural parts of the city. Hope the disease passes soon.
Raccoons are so crazy adaptable to urban living that they are going to have population explosions from time to time. Those little guys know how to get by in the city!
I have a photo of a mink I spotted at Lake Ray Hubbard. What a surprise as I have never seen one in the wild before. He looked well and was scampering amongst the rocks.
I would enjoy seeing that picture!
I was just googling (which led me here) because we saw a mink at Ray Hubbard on Wednesday night. We were eating on the deck of The Flying Saucer. It was out scampering on the rocks running all around.