As usual exotic pets take the fall for improper hygene and quarantine methods on the part of people. I'm refering to the few recent cases of monkeypox documented here in th U.S. and where the blame is being placed The species to species spread of diseases is dangerous and complicated but by no means limited to exotics. Example: Sheep in Europe have long spread a disease called scrapies among themselves. After slaughter the infected sheep remains were recycled into cattle feed. This practice was very common in Europe until recently. The disease "jumped species" and is now present in beef cattle and is known as bovine spongifor encephalopathy or mad cow.

This article takes a very negative stance in regards to exotics making very broad claims. As for the article's claim that prairy dogs carry plague-It's the fleas that spread the disease as we all should know. Prairy dog towns can and in rare cases do contain plague but rarely do they come into contact with people. And since fleas spread the disease between species anyway the host is inconsequential.



So now read what CNN.com had to say:



http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/06/10/monkeypox.diseases.ap/index.html



Now as usual I'm sure we'll all be seeing that familiar legislation we love so much. Thanx for reading.

Oh P.S. see the snake in the graphic?

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