Apart from my squeamishness with blood and all things medical, one of the reasons I never pursued my childhood desire to be a veterinarian was that I didn’t think I could deal with euthanizing animals. It’s never really been a huge problem at WildCare because I’ve never questioned the necessity for some of the animals to be euthanized, and they aren’t people’s pets . The snake whose spine is broken at the base of the head, the hawk with an infected compound fracture, the squirrel squished by a car, these are things that can’t be fixed and it is merciful to euthanize the animal. Still, there’s nothing quite like having to euthanize the first baby raccoons of the season.
They came in on Friday after momma raccoon failed to come back to her den for four days. Steve and I babysat three of the five over Saturday night. They weren’t suckling the unfamiliar formula yet and feeding five baby raccoons can take a long time in the best of circumstances, let alone with high-maintenance babies. So we took a few to relieve the team leader at least for one night. Unfortunately, three of the five babies started having seizures, along with other symptoms of distemper and they had to be put down. We think it’s likely that momma raccoon probably died of distemper herself. The other two have some symptoms as well, but they haven’t started having seizures yet, so the team leader is just giving them supportive care and we are hoping for the best.
We’ve seen an unusually high number of adult raccoons with distemper this spring, so we knew it was going to be a bad season. But having to watch these wonderful babies be euthanized was very difficult today and generally threw a pall over the whole day. Sorry to be such a downer, but really what a shitty day.