USA Today on Exotic Pet Trade

[Pat Wolff]

Virus raises issue: Pet or threat?
Wed Jun 11

Chris Woodyard USA TODAY 

MILWAUKEE -- Something wasn't right about the shipment
of prairie dogs that Hoffer's Tropic Life pet store
received here. 

''When they came in, they were coughing and sneezing.
We recognized it right away and kept them off the
(sales) floor,'' Mike Hoffer says.

Even that precaution didn't prevent the veterinarian
and an employee from coming down last month with
symptoms of monkeypox, the rare virus that the prairie
dogs were carrying.

As of Tuesday, more than 50 people in three Midwestern
states and New Jersey are believed to have become
infected with the monkeypox virus, a close but weaker
relative of smallpox. All the victims are believed to
have come into contact with prairie dogs or other
exotic pets.

The monkeypox outbreak underscores the health hazards
posed by the burgeoning trade in alternative pets,
which runs the gamut from hedgehogs to raccoons.

Health officials say the U.S. monkeypox outbreak can
be traced in the distribution chain to an infected
Gambian giant rat, which in turn infected prairie
dogs. An unknown number of infected prairie dogs were
sold at pet stores in the region and at ''swap meets''
where animals are sold and traded.

''It doesn't take a genius to figure out there's a
potential for disease to be passed,'' says Alan Green,
author of the book Animal Underworld: Inside America's
Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species.

For public health officials, the outbreak represents a
wake-up call to how quickly an unusual virus can
spread through the exotic-pet trade. Live animals are
ferried from Asia, Africa or other continents at jet
speed, then they often are kept in close contact with
other species. They are eventually sold as pets to
American pet owners who often have only rudimentary
knowledge about them.

''Any illness in the world can appear on the American
doorstep in a matter of hours,'' says Seth Foldy,
Milwaukee's health commissioner.

Looking for something new

As soon as monkeypox was diagnosed and the source
determined, officials took immediate steps. On Friday,
Wisconsin officials banned the sale of prairie dogs in
the state. Hoffer says the seven prairie dogs that he
had in stock were euthanized, and he's temporarily
barred from selling other small furry animals.

Hoffer says unusual animals such as prairie dogs,
which he sold for a decade without problems, are
popular.

''You get bored looking at mice, gerbils and rats,''
he says. ''Customers want to see something new and
fresh. It's like last year's model on a car. We're
doing the same thing, trying to come up with something
new every once in a while.''

Indeed, experts say exotic animals often get fad
status.

Though there are questions about how big the trade in
exotic pets has become, ''it's bigger than we would
like to see it,'' says Stephen Zawistowski, science
adviser to the American Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals.

There are occasional reports of exotic or unusual pets
passing on a virus. The National Center for Infectious
Diseases has warned about the risk of plague in
prairie dogs and other rodents.

Green, the author, says another rodent-like creature
that was being imported from Egypt, the Jerboa, was
believed to have caused a rash in some of its owners.
Raccoons, which are sometimes kept as pets, can pass
on a roundworm parasite to humans through their feces.

Critics say government regulation is spotty. The
Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service licenses dealers and breeders. The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service monitors the Endangered
Species Act. But the rules for the keeping of the
animals by pet owners fall under a hodgepodge of state
and local government regulations.

In 2001, the service had 1,166 licensed dealers,
including those of prairie dogs, spokesman Jim Rogers
says.

Quarantined at home

The Kautzer family of Dorchester, Wis., brought home a
pair of male prairie dogs May 11.

''We had one before that was real friendly,'' says
Steve Kautzer, 38, reached by telephone at his home.
''You could pet it. . . . It would gently nibble at
you, it was playful.''

Two days after bringing them home, his 3-year-old
daughter, Schyan (pronounced Shy-ANN) was bitten on
the right index finger. ''It was like a scratch,
barely broke the skin,'' her father says. Three or
four days later, a sore emerged at the bite site. Then
a high fever started, and Schyan was hospitalized for
eight days. Today, she is home and feeling much
better. The animal that bit her died, Kautzer says,
and the other one, Chuckles, is quarantined in a cage
on the porch.

Steve and his wife, Tammy, became ill with symptoms of
monkeypox. The family is recuperating under quarantine
and feeling better, Steve says, at least physically.

''Mentally, it's kind of getting to us, just being
cooped up inside,'' he says.

Kautzer, a lumberyard worker, and his wife, who works
in a frozen-pizza warehouse, are on temporary
disability.

Kautzer says they probably won't get prairie dogs
again.

''Right now, it's kind of up in the air, I guess,'' he
says. ''But we're looking more away from them.''

Prairie-dog advocates say the rodent gets a bad rap.
They say that it's a wild creature that should be
protected in nature, not kept as a pet, and that the
monkeypox virus isn't native to the species.

Rebecca Fischer, director of Prairie Dog Rescue of New
England, says she is occasionally bitten by one of the
30 or 40 prairie dogs she keeps in her Connecticut
shelter. ''The average pet owner can't deal with
that,'' she says.

She says she often counsels owners who find them
undesirable as pets.

''The bottom line is wildlife should stay in the
wild,'' Fischer says.




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