Chicago Wildlife News: Man tries to save infected coyote near Elgin

Man tries to save infected coyote near Elgin

(POSTED: 2/21/11) A couple weeks ago Bob Ruffer discovered a sick coyote laying motionless in his barn in unincorporated Elgin.

"I just felt so bad," Ruffer, 57, said. "I thought, 'I can't leave him here to freeze to death.'"

Ruffer (pictured left) tried to lure the animal with a piece of bologna, but the coyote could barely move. Fearing the coyote was going to die, Ruffer picked it up to bring it inside his home. The animal smelled terrible and had diarrhea while being carried, Ruffer said. He also noticed the coyote had four or five raw sores about the size of a quarter.

"It's like the skin was gone," he said. "It was just the raw, red meat there."

Ruffer figured the coyote was suffering from mange -- a skin disease in which mites burrow deep into the animal's skin and cause severe irritation. Depending on how bad the infection, mange can be "very detrimental," according to Sandy Woltman, vice president of the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association.

"Many times the mange gets worse and worse and it weakens the animal so it can't find sufficient food or sufficient housing," she said.

Mange often causes death, according to wildlife experts, because it makes the animal more susceptible to other infections and can shut down the animal's organs. What's more, animals with the disease sometimes scratch so much that they lose their fur.

"Their coat is what keeps them alive during the winter so most of the animals that die from mange die from exposure," said Stanley Gehrt, associate professor of wildlife ecology at The Ohio State University who also heads the Cook County Coyote Project. Gehrt estimated that fewer than 10 percent of the thousands of coyotes in Cook County have mange.

The disease can be transmitted from one animal to another, but the mites cannot live long without a host. Typically mange is spread if animals share the same den.

Rose Augustine, a wildlife specialist at Willowbrook Wildlife Center in Glen Ellyn, said her group usually finds mange in foxes, coyotes and squirrels. However, dogs -- and even humans -- can get mange if they come in direct contact with it. If people become infected, they usually will get a rash and it is fairly easy to treat.

"If a homeowner sees a coyote with mange then they'd want to make sure to keep their pets away" and call a wildlife center, Augustine said.

After Ruffer cleaned and cared for the coyote he found, he took it to Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation in the Barrington area. Flint Creek did not return phone calls, but according to its Facebook page, the coyote died a few days later.

"He's just a dog, a dog that needed help," Ruffer said. "I was hoping that he'd make it. .. That's God's way, I guess."

By Katie Drews, for ChicagoWildlifeNews.com
Contact: [email protected]

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