Rabies One of the most frequent questions the public or the biologists have when they find a mammal acting abnormally or dead is “does it have rabies?” We send all of our samples to the NY State Department of Health (DOH) for official rabies testing, but

Rabies One of the most frequent questions the public or the biologists have when they find a mammal acting abnormally or dead is “does it have rabies?” We send all of our samples to the NY State Department of Health (DOH) for official rabies testing, but

Rabies One of the most frequent questions the public or the biologists have when they find a mammal acting abnormally or dead is “does it have rabies?” We send all of our samples to the NY State Department of Health (DOH) for official rabies testing, but we sometimes will look at histology of the brain of suspected rabid animals under the microscope, particularly if the sample that we sent to the DOH was not ideal. In the case pictured, the rabies test at DOH was positive. Numerous rabies virus inclusion
Herpesvirus There are many things that we find that kill birds of prey. Things like electrocution, and trauma are often visible at gross examination. However, toxin exposures and infectious diseases often require histopathology or other laboratory testing to detect. In this case of a young Peregrine falcon, we found microscopic areas of necrosis throughout the liver and spleen and some of the nuclei in the hepatocytes (liver cells) contain round, red inclusion bodies typical of herpesvirus infection.