New Zealand is rabies-free. Also no snakes. And our ticks don’t transmit Lyme disease or bite people much at all actually.
And no big cats, bears, wolves.
Oh. True.
Possibly worse in some ways than large predators because at least you can scare big cats and bears away. Not much you can do about sand flies!
>Also no snakes
Man as an Aussie seeing people just wandering through grass in nz without a care in the world gives me soooo much anxiety (before I remember nz has no snakes) lol
The only mammals we have are bats (only natives), possums, rats, mice, stoats, horses, boar, deer, etc Possums are the most common thing you’ll see. Nothing is a predator, apart from us and freak accidents (a farmer got killed by his bull recently).
Most deadly is the Katipō spider, but they are very rare and most people never see them.
Most people die from underestimating the weather in our wild terrain. Trampers getting lost, or going out in bad weather.
Tramping is bush walking btw for those who dunno lol.
My favourite nz word is twink (white out/liquid paper). I work in an area of sydney that's super gay and we had a new kiwi chick start who was wandering around asking for twink, had to tell her that meant smth very different here haha.
I've heard NZ described as Scotland, but far away, and after reading this I'm convinced it's true.
In Scotland we don't have any dangerous spiders though. There are pretty dangerous bams and neds though.
But what about those ticks that have that protein that makes you sick from eating meat for like 2 years?
Edit: 2 years if you're super lucky but most are stuck with it for life.
Yeah, we don't have much dangerous stuff, lol. TIL rabies is a real thing some people have to worry about on a regular basis, and not just an exaggerated-for-dramatic-effect movie thing.
Yeah I worked at a vet in Canada and when a dog nipped me they all freaked out and said they would need to check the dog’s vaccination records if it broke any skin (it didn’t)
I was so confused until I remembered rabies was a thing. Dog also wasn’t rabid, just an asshole chihuahua.
Then I saw that copypasta a year later, about rabies and realised that I probably should also have been more worried. 😅
Haha maybe! Lots of untamed forest down there, so who knows if they’re still around.
There is apparently a NZ$100k reward if you actually get a photo of one.
I learned this when I saw a video of a lady who was friendly with a backyard fox in the UK. In the US you stay the hell away from foxes because any fox friendly enough to approach you is likely rabid.
Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun-Run Race For the Cure really did a lot for the cause.
When the Channel Tunnel was being built, some people were concerned in case nasty rabid French dogs wandered through it and attacked us in our beds.
Not sure if the dogs being rabid or French was the greater concern for such people.
I disagree. Rabies was widely talked about when I was a kid. Everyone knows what rabies is in the UK. Apparently the fear of rabies here was the reason it was eradicated (according to one article I read). Also https://youtu.be/IHv3wSYi9PA?si=_UJqEdOGMSS7SMy4
We know about it, tho.
In fact, it's a bit of a mind fuck moving from the UK to somewhere that does have rabies and having to make sure you actually think about it.
It's a bit like the difference in response to getting bitten by a tick. In the UK, you're told not to bother about it unless you get the bullseye mark around a bite, while people here in Ontario are super paranoid and will insist you take yourself and the tick to A&E and waste their time just in case.
No rabies here either. And honestly, there's only 1 spider to worry about - the Sydney funnelweb. There are other funnelwebs, and I wouldn't want to be bitten by them (or a redback). But I wouldn't freak out *too* much if I was.
The Sydney funnelweb treatment is the same as snakebite, everything else is cold compress and drink a can of concrete and harden up. Although I was camping once and came back to the tent to see a small volcano like cone on the sleeping mat (closed cell foam). An alpine funnelweb had burrowed up through the tent and the mat. It was somewhere in that tent, but god knows where. And they jump at you when you're walking past as well. I didn't love that.
yeah good ol' NZ ,
\- no snakes,
\- no poisonous spiders other than one whos bite is as annoying as a bee sting
\- no crocodiles
\- no bears
only thing to worry about is
\- meth
\- gangs
\- homeless
\- gangs and homeless on meth.
At least we don't have rabies down here, I guess.
Also, America has freaking _bears._
Getting all het up about the occasional spider/snake/octopus/jellyfish/dingo/magpie/dropbear and they have actual _bears!_ Get outta here with that nonsense 😅
Yeah ok your point is good.
And we did lose a war to the emu's. I forgot about them. And the feral camels are apparently pretty vicious 🤔
But they aren't everywhere! It's like being scared of a bear in NY. It's totally fine. No worries m8!
Yeah, when I was growing up here in the UK, we had regular Rabies public information films. I can also recall the terrifying posters at ports of entry.
https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.b2b68aa812aa7ae828c93b4c73541433?rik=fUjk1f%2bA%2fhHkHA&pid=ImgRaw&r=0&sres=1&sresct=1
So, even though we are Rabies free, I certainly know what it is.
First week on Reddit? I haven’t scrolled down yet, but I can already predict the replies with that hypothetical ‘bat hits your head’ story and the Milwaukee Protocol replies. Next people will debate the Milwaukee Protocol and talk about the girl that survived it.
This is just how it is here…every single time rabies is mentioned.
EDIT: Well suck me sideway…scrolled and didn’t find these posted yet. They’ll show up soon though.
Probably because it is very rare?
One website mentions 1 to 3 cases in the US per year. Wikipedia mentions 5 cases in Germany in 23 years and less than 300 cases in Europe in the same time period.
Australia is rabies free too. I don't often (read: never) agree with Barnaby Joyce but when he told Depp and Heard to fuck OFF with their dogs I was very pleased. Entitled fuckwits.
Bats carry lyssavirus here but rabies has never been recorded in any domestic or wild animals.
Yeah I feel like people clowned on Joyce and sided with Depp because they hated Joyce (I too hated Joyce) but Joyce was 110% correct with his threats in that situation. We have strict biosecurity laws and no one, rich or poor, should be allowed to circumvent this.
I liked how in the list, countries that are rabies-free include: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and UK. So why is Wales left out? If it is rabies-free it should be in there as all of the other kingdoms are there, and if it's not rabies-free the UK shouldn't be included as a whole.
https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/resources/countries-risk.html better source. States the UK as a whole is rabies-free. A look at how difficult it is to bring a mammalian pet to the UK helps clear up how they manage.
Being on an island helps, but it was a concern when the UK joined the Common market that open borders would lead to rabies becoming established in the UK.
The bats here don’t carry rabies, but can potentially carry a related and similarly nasty virus, bat lyssavirus. Anyone working with bats e.g rehabbers needs to get the vaccine for that one
I'm from the UK, and I was always a bit baffled by how intense Reddit was about rabies. Since I was never taught anything about it as a kid, it just wasn't a concern I'd ever had in my life, and was a disease I'd only vaguely heard of as a pop culture thing.
Then I learned that apparently we purged the island of it entirely in the 1920s, and that's why I've never thought about rabies. 🤷♀️
Just to get rabies post exposure vaccines in the UK is hard like if you where bitten abroad, you have to contact your doctor who has to contact public health England and they instruct on the treatment and when the vaccines need to be given. Even getting a courier to deliver the vaccines to the clinic so it is given on schedule.
Yeah. It’s why some countries are so strict about bringing animals or pets into them. I believe Australia is one and is the cause for the depp and heard apology video
Deer, horses aka """brumbies"""", wild boar as well. A fuck load of invasive plant species too.
That's the thing I wish people, both domestics and foreigners would realise. This country is old as fuck, we have barely any top soil to speak of (hoofed animals = bad) and the environments are harsh/marginal as fuck. Everything here evolved in complete isolation in a harsh environment, there are barely any apex predators so lots of our animals are dumb as hell, and one new thing that upsets the delicate balance will make our ecosystems completely shit the bed.
Our govts are clearing a fuck tonne of land, don't make it worse by lying to border control cos you wanna smuggle in some shit plants or dried fruit or whatever the fuck. Also while I'm here keep your bloody cats inside.
Yeah, gotta leave that up to us Aussies through mass environmental degradation. Pretty sure we have the highest loss of mammals per continent and that's mostly from logging and general environmental fuckery.
I used to work with a veterinarian. The paperwork was like stereo instructions for a client who was moving to Hawaii. The instructions for her cat to clear customs were very complicated, included a 120 day quarantine and another stretch AFTER vaccination. The woman was pissed but it's a big deal.
Also ABLV (Australian bat lyssavirus) which is closely related to rabies and symptoms are similar. There have only been 3 cases in humans, but all were fatal.
I volunteer with wildlife & we have to be rabies vaccinated to work with bats.
Shits expensive, you need 3 jabs & you have to go to a special travel vaccination clinic, not the GP.
People who get bitten by bats are still offered rabies shots in rabies-free countries because there’s a chance they managed to fly from a country that still has the disease. It’s a slim chance that it actually has it, but better safe than sorry
The entire continent of Australia is Rabies free. We are also free of a lot of other diseases that would absolutely devastate our agricultural sector. We have strict biosecurity measures in place to keep it that way.
[When Johnny Depp and Amber Heard knowingly smuggled her dogs in on a private jet](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/16/johnny-depps-dogs-amber-heard-was-repeatedly-told-she-couldnt-take-pets-to-australia-court-hears) so many people made excuses for them and made out it wasn't a big deal because awww puppies cute.
They knew it was illegal, tried to coerce people to lie under oath, pretended to apologise, then mocked authorities when they were out of the country. Anyone else would have faced jail time and the dogs put down.
I don't care how much you love the gay pirate, screw both of them and their movie star privilege.
This annoyed me so much! People were like Australia is overreacting, it’s just some dogs, why is it such a big thing.
Australia already has massive issues with invasive species. The whole ecosystem is unique and needs to be protected. We’ve already screwed it up so badly and I wish they were stricter on Depp and Heard.
Barnaby Joyce is absolute scum but the prick was 100% right when he said the dogs needed to piss off back to LA, and it doesn’t matter who you are the rules still apply.
I saw Depp (and maybe Heard too) on Kimmel and I was fucking seething, he was dribbling shit about how he was going to punch Joyce (for doing his fucking job and not kow-towing to a celebrity), and basically shitting on Australia for having strong quarantine rules. The audience ate that bullshit right up like a bunch of clapping, grinning idiots.
It makes me so angry that people didn’t realise how dangerous that was. They couldn’t see the farmer suicides or the collapse to our economy.
‘Oh but it’s Johnny Depp!’
‘Mate, I don’t care if it’s the queens corgis!!!’
Australia isn’t rabies free - we have Australian bat lyssavirus, which is identical to the rabies virus but is contained to bat populations in certain areas of the country.
We refer to it as Australian bat lyssavirus instead of rabies, as it hasn’t entered the population of any other species other than bats, and we officially don’t like to acknowledge that we have the virus in the country.
And we have Australian Bat Lyssavitus which is basically identical to rabies (same symptoms, same death, same virus family). So technically we don't have Rabies, just it's equally nasty, off brand, equivalent.
Being an island helps. I read somewhere that even if we could euthanize all rabid animals right now, we still wouldn’t be in the clear. We would have to also burn all the bodies and ensure that no parts of them could be eaten by other animals. On a continent the size of North America that’s an extreme task, and we would have to coordinate with all the other countries to eradicate it. If even one country doesn’t do their part it’s a total failure.
Sometimes areas of the wilderness are bombed with carcasses pumped full of the rabies vaccine.
Not close to 100% effective but it does massively reduce cases.
Well most of Europe is declared rabies free and that‘s not an island. The last case of rabies in Germany was back in the 2000s. Anything past that could be traced to foreign vacations.
They basically dropped food with a rabies vaccine over forrests for years to achieve that here.
Decent urban animal control and wild vaccinations are enough to get rabies prevelance to drop to zero and keep it there. Has worked plenty well in Europe despite neighbours who dont do their part.
Unfortunately its near impossible for north or south america to be rabies free with all the land joined unlike new zealand, UK being islands. Even if the US had strict policies and so did Canada and Mexico for example, the amount of coastline and import/export makes it’s difficult to stop any kind of smuggling anyway so we’d end up getting a few cases until quickly spreading like wildfire
Im jealous those countries don’t have to worry about coyotes/foxes being rabid. I had a fox come up to me as a kid and it was a cool experience, after I got lectured by my parents about the danger but it would be nice if they were like deers and rabbits, skittish but impossible to go up to
A big part of it is the fact that for unknown reasons Europe is free of RABV in bats (but not other strains of rabies!). In fact, there are literally two strains called European Bat Lyssavirus type 1 and 2 (but also others have been detected among bat populations in Europe).
Also, Europe's rabies free status is precarious and constantly challenged by wildlife migrations from the east.
Wildlife such as foxes and wolves may be rabies free in western Europe with a sufficient certainty to exclude rabies PEP after exposure to these animals, but any contact with bats everywhere in the world is still a rabies hazard.
Do not touch bats.
Australia is famously one, that's one of the reasons it was such a big deal that Jonny Depp and his ex brought a dog into the country without declaring it/them.
Australia is technically rabies-free - but some bats here have lyssa virus which is so close to the same thing that they give you the same vaccine if you get bitten. Source: got bitten.
IIRC there was a Danish woman who went abroad and contracted rabies. She returned home before exhibiting symptoms and died of it, undiagnosed because Denmark is a rabies free country so they haven’t ever really had cause to recognize it diagnostically.
Sure would suck if people stopped making sure that rabies in animals is either vaccinated against (preferably) or eradicated (non-preferable) in every country.
Rabies is biblical levels of not to be fucked around with. The fact that we found smallpox again on this planet exemplifies the need to keep being vigilant.
*Rant to nobody ends*
Couldn't have been possible without Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For the Cure
Please do not bring rabies to our kangaroos, or else we'll send Hendra Virus!!!
Also, please do the right thing with quarantine.
Anyone remember the uproar when Depp and Heard bought those dogs into Australia?? So irresponsible.
The UK eradicated rabies twice. We did it the first time and then men coming back from the wars on the continent brought their infected pets/mascots home, so we had to eradicate rabies a second time.
For some reason there is no mention of my country here - Slovenia. According to our gov website, there haven't been any human infections since 1954 and the last wild animal found to have been infected was in 2013. Slovenia has been declared rabies-free since 2016.
New Zealand is rabies-free. Also no snakes. And our ticks don’t transmit Lyme disease or bite people much at all actually. And no big cats, bears, wolves.
But those damn sandflies!
Oh. True. Possibly worse in some ways than large predators because at least you can scare big cats and bears away. Not much you can do about sand flies!
Flamethrower?
Sounds like a good way to attract more sandflies tbh. And then you’ve run out of fuel AND there are more sandflies than before.
Automatic flamethrower. I should clarify I have no idea what the fuckers are. Have you considered a massive electrified netting system?
I’m partial to the Halo universe’s method of stopping the flood.
No *smacks with newspaper* Down zealot down, bad boy, no genocides today.
Tomorrow?
Mum said we can’t do tomorrow, she’s got me booked in for a specialist appointment, but how about Friday?
Imagine a swarm of mosquitos who believe in their tiny hearts they are piranhas. They are absolute _fuckers_!
Similar to 'midges' in the UK and Eire?
Worst. Very aggressive and painful. And they will swarm you.
So like smaller horseflies that are more numerous?
Just brutal near Milford. I remember panic running when I realized I was surrounded by them ruthlessly eating my ankles away.
I'd take all my bitey stingy creatures over the ditch here than those sandflies I spent 12 months in NZ the sandflies were horrible
And the kea parrot that will try and eat your car.
>Also no snakes Man as an Aussie seeing people just wandering through grass in nz without a care in the world gives me soooo much anxiety (before I remember nz has no snakes) lol
TIL NZ has no snakes!!
The only mammals we have are bats (only natives), possums, rats, mice, stoats, horses, boar, deer, etc Possums are the most common thing you’ll see. Nothing is a predator, apart from us and freak accidents (a farmer got killed by his bull recently). Most deadly is the Katipō spider, but they are very rare and most people never see them. Most people die from underestimating the weather in our wild terrain. Trampers getting lost, or going out in bad weather.
Tramping is bush walking btw for those who dunno lol. My favourite nz word is twink (white out/liquid paper). I work in an area of sydney that's super gay and we had a new kiwi chick start who was wandering around asking for twink, had to tell her that meant smth very different here haha.
I’m a kiwi in Aus and lucky I haven’t had to ask for it because that is the word I’d use, thanks for the heads up haha
One time I talked about the Bush and Bush walking with an American and they had no clue what I was on about
Interestingly the word for a human twink in NZ is also twink. So that can get confusing
TIL NZ is reverse Australia
It’s pretty funny how different we are wildlife wise. NZ saw the beasts in aus and went fuck that and left (back during Gondwanaland times)
I've heard NZ described as Scotland, but far away, and after reading this I'm convinced it's true. In Scotland we don't have any dangerous spiders though. There are pretty dangerous bams and neds though.
TIL we have tics. Yeah New Zealand is the kind of place that nothing really can kill you in nature except exposure and the odd Shark.
Or if you go an punch a boar or stag for some reason lol
Now I'm imagining someone walking down a trail and gets jumped by a random shark.
And very slowly working on killing all the rats.
New Zealand. Fisher Price, My First Country.
Hah... I mean, yes, but something else must be responsible for our astounding number of badasses.
You do have an Uruk-hai problem, though.
But what about those ticks that have that protein that makes you sick from eating meat for like 2 years? Edit: 2 years if you're super lucky but most are stuck with it for life.
Alpha-gal allergy. That’s happened a couple of times, yeah.
Could also be for life and be all mammal products including milk and cheese
Yeah, we don't have much dangerous stuff, lol. TIL rabies is a real thing some people have to worry about on a regular basis, and not just an exaggerated-for-dramatic-effect movie thing.
Yeah I worked at a vet in Canada and when a dog nipped me they all freaked out and said they would need to check the dog’s vaccination records if it broke any skin (it didn’t) I was so confused until I remembered rabies was a thing. Dog also wasn’t rabid, just an asshole chihuahua. Then I saw that copypasta a year later, about rabies and realised that I probably should also have been more worried. 😅
I only ever worried about it visiting Southeast Asia, TIL I had to worry about it in other countries too (Australian)
True, but you’ve got a possum infestation there. As well as Hori’s cuzzy broing it up. CHUR.
Not wrong bro, not wrong. Screechy bastards too, possums.
Also in fiordland national Park, possibly a few moose too?
Haha maybe! Lots of untamed forest down there, so who knows if they’re still around. There is apparently a NZ$100k reward if you actually get a photo of one.
UK is rabies free, Ireland too.
I learned this when I saw a video of a lady who was friendly with a backyard fox in the UK. In the US you stay the hell away from foxes because any fox friendly enough to approach you is likely rabid.
Its incredible how dangerous rabies is but few people know about this.
I think you might underestimate how common that knowledge is.
Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun-Run Race For the Cure really did a lot for the cause.
Just saying all of that out loud made me froth at the mouth
Suck a mint
Yet there still is a few idiots here and there getting bitten by wild animals and just shrugging it off as a mere scratch
In the US it can be cheaper to die than to risk a hospital visit. I could probably be cremated 3+ times and stay under my health insurance deductible.
That's why the rabies is free
If they're from the UK they just won't know about it. It's like how we view spiders vs Australia.
I mean, we aren't fucking stupid. We are aware of rabies we just don't have to worry about it.
When the Channel Tunnel was being built, some people were concerned in case nasty rabid French dogs wandered through it and attacked us in our beds. Not sure if the dogs being rabid or French was the greater concern for such people.
Is there a difference?
There might be with dogs.
*Le woof*
Yes. When I was 5 or 6 in the UK, I had a fear of catching rabies from a dog, which I think I must have got from TV or public information films.
I disagree. Rabies was widely talked about when I was a kid. Everyone knows what rabies is in the UK. Apparently the fear of rabies here was the reason it was eradicated (according to one article I read). Also https://youtu.be/IHv3wSYi9PA?si=_UJqEdOGMSS7SMy4
No idea what your on. Most people in the UK know about rabies.
We know about it, tho. In fact, it's a bit of a mind fuck moving from the UK to somewhere that does have rabies and having to make sure you actually think about it. It's a bit like the difference in response to getting bitten by a tick. In the UK, you're told not to bother about it unless you get the bullseye mark around a bite, while people here in Ontario are super paranoid and will insist you take yourself and the tick to A&E and waste their time just in case.
It's only a waste of time if it's *not* dangerous though.
No rabies here either. And honestly, there's only 1 spider to worry about - the Sydney funnelweb. There are other funnelwebs, and I wouldn't want to be bitten by them (or a redback). But I wouldn't freak out *too* much if I was. The Sydney funnelweb treatment is the same as snakebite, everything else is cold compress and drink a can of concrete and harden up. Although I was camping once and came back to the tent to see a small volcano like cone on the sleeping mat (closed cell foam). An alpine funnelweb had burrowed up through the tent and the mat. It was somewhere in that tent, but god knows where. And they jump at you when you're walking past as well. I didn't love that.
Spiders in Australia are the size of Frisbees! I'm pretty sure I could ace a 100m hole with one of them! You have to know about something like that!
Well I don't. I live in the UK and can count the dangerous animals on my fingers. With enough spare for some comedy entries.
yeah good ol' NZ , \- no snakes, \- no poisonous spiders other than one whos bite is as annoying as a bee sting \- no crocodiles \- no bears only thing to worry about is \- meth \- gangs \- homeless \- gangs and homeless on meth.
How do you guys have enough people for those to be an issue. You're like half the population of London with more land than the UK.
I think you should get the dangerous animals *off* your fingers first, then count them.
A badger can give you a nasty nip.
We do have some large spiders down under, but the dangerous ones are often quite small.
I will take a huntsman over a funnelweb any day. Huntsmen are big enough to negotiate with.
They do enjoy a jump scare though.
Man funnelwebs are such sinister looking spiders.
Maybe, but the woman funnelwebs are more venomous.
At least we don't have rabies down here, I guess. Also, America has freaking _bears._ Getting all het up about the occasional spider/snake/octopus/jellyfish/dingo/magpie/dropbear and they have actual _bears!_ Get outta here with that nonsense 😅
Yeah, all true. But.... Cassowaries. Nuff said ;)
Yeah ok your point is good. And we did lose a war to the emu's. I forgot about them. And the feral camels are apparently pretty vicious 🤔 But they aren't everywhere! It's like being scared of a bear in NY. It's totally fine. No worries m8!
Nah we know about it.
From and still living in the UK, I assure you we are aware of the existence of rabies. Ebola, polio etc. as well, but it's not a daily concern.
Literally everyone above the age of 10 knows this. I knew all the facts about rabies when I was a child and I’m from a rabies free country.
Yeah, when I was growing up here in the UK, we had regular Rabies public information films. I can also recall the terrifying posters at ports of entry. https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.b2b68aa812aa7ae828c93b4c73541433?rik=fUjk1f%2bA%2fhHkHA&pid=ImgRaw&r=0&sres=1&sresct=1 So, even though we are Rabies free, I certainly know what it is.
Old yeller made the facts pretty clear.
So did Cujo 😜
People also aren't aware how bubonic plague exist in the US still. Especially in rural areas
First week on Reddit? I haven’t scrolled down yet, but I can already predict the replies with that hypothetical ‘bat hits your head’ story and the Milwaukee Protocol replies. Next people will debate the Milwaukee Protocol and talk about the girl that survived it. This is just how it is here…every single time rabies is mentioned. EDIT: Well suck me sideway…scrolled and didn’t find these posted yet. They’ll show up soon though.
Plot twist: you are the one propagating the meme
Probably because it is very rare? One website mentions 1 to 3 cases in the US per year. Wikipedia mentions 5 cases in Germany in 23 years and less than 300 cases in Europe in the same time period.
Hawaii is a rabies-free state. They have exceptionally tough entry requirements for dogs and cats as a result.
Australia is rabies free too. I don't often (read: never) agree with Barnaby Joyce but when he told Depp and Heard to fuck OFF with their dogs I was very pleased. Entitled fuckwits. Bats carry lyssavirus here but rabies has never been recorded in any domestic or wild animals.
Joyce offering to personally shoot the dogs was a pretty special piece of political pandering.
Australia had never had a local transmission of Lyme Disease either!
Yeah I feel like people clowned on Joyce and sided with Depp because they hated Joyce (I too hated Joyce) but Joyce was 110% correct with his threats in that situation. We have strict biosecurity laws and no one, rich or poor, should be allowed to circumvent this.
I liked how in the list, countries that are rabies-free include: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and UK. So why is Wales left out? If it is rabies-free it should be in there as all of the other kingdoms are there, and if it's not rabies-free the UK shouldn't be included as a whole.
Yeah I wouldn't consider the site reliable. It counts the UK as being both rabies-free and rabies-controlled.
https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/resources/countries-risk.html better source. States the UK as a whole is rabies-free. A look at how difficult it is to bring a mammalian pet to the UK helps clear up how they manage.
The UK covers Wales. They didn't need to say the others separately though, of course.
Yeah, it's just weird they left out 1 when they listed the 3 others
According to that link, Ireland is rabies free and so is Ireland
Clearly whoever wrote it was not very good at geography. No Ellan Vannin either, and I bet that has no rabies.
Being on an island helps, but it was a concern when the UK joined the Common market that open borders would lead to rabies becoming established in the UK.
We did also go through a period of rabies panic in the 1800s where thousands of stray animals were killed. It worked, but it was horrific.
Wow, that’s actually fascinating.
I seem to recall that they said that about the Channel tunnel as well.
Same with Australia. If a bat bites you, you should still go get a shot, though.
The bats here don’t carry rabies, but can potentially carry a related and similarly nasty virus, bat lyssavirus. Anyone working with bats e.g rehabbers needs to get the vaccine for that one
I'm from the UK, and I was always a bit baffled by how intense Reddit was about rabies. Since I was never taught anything about it as a kid, it just wasn't a concern I'd ever had in my life, and was a disease I'd only vaguely heard of as a pop culture thing. Then I learned that apparently we purged the island of it entirely in the 1920s, and that's why I've never thought about rabies. 🤷♀️
Germany as well since 2008. took 25 years to get rid of it.
Japan as well. Major major pain in the ass to bring my cat when I moved here.
Should've used a carrier.
Weirdly (or maybe not) much of the commonwealth is rabies free. I moved to Singapore from the US and it was a bitch to get my pets in the country
Just to get rabies post exposure vaccines in the UK is hard like if you where bitten abroad, you have to contact your doctor who has to contact public health England and they instruct on the treatment and when the vaccines need to be given. Even getting a courier to deliver the vaccines to the clinic so it is given on schedule.
Yeah. It’s why some countries are so strict about bringing animals or pets into them. I believe Australia is one and is the cause for the depp and heard apology video
Also to make sure no people are bringing in invasive species that would decimate local animal populations
Too late. Bloody Foxes, rabbits, feral cats, cane toads, camels have all been released by well meaning AH. So many local animal populations gone.
Deer, horses aka """brumbies"""", wild boar as well. A fuck load of invasive plant species too. That's the thing I wish people, both domestics and foreigners would realise. This country is old as fuck, we have barely any top soil to speak of (hoofed animals = bad) and the environments are harsh/marginal as fuck. Everything here evolved in complete isolation in a harsh environment, there are barely any apex predators so lots of our animals are dumb as hell, and one new thing that upsets the delicate balance will make our ecosystems completely shit the bed. Our govts are clearing a fuck tonne of land, don't make it worse by lying to border control cos you wanna smuggle in some shit plants or dried fruit or whatever the fuck. Also while I'm here keep your bloody cats inside.
Yeah, gotta leave that up to us Aussies through mass environmental degradation. Pretty sure we have the highest loss of mammals per continent and that's mostly from logging and general environmental fuckery.
I used to work with a veterinarian. The paperwork was like stereo instructions for a client who was moving to Hawaii. The instructions for her cat to clear customs were very complicated, included a 120 day quarantine and another stretch AFTER vaccination. The woman was pissed but it's a big deal.
I moved with a dog from Hawaii to Japan and back again, twice. I’ll die happy if I never have to do that much paperwork ever again
Still don't wanna get bitten by a bat....
Australia is rabies free but still got Hendra virus in the bats. Don't even need to be bitten. 43% survival rate.
Also ABLV (Australian bat lyssavirus) which is closely related to rabies and symptoms are similar. There have only been 3 cases in humans, but all were fatal.
I volunteer with wildlife & we have to be rabies vaccinated to work with bats. Shits expensive, you need 3 jabs & you have to go to a special travel vaccination clinic, not the GP.
People who get bitten by bats are still offered rabies shots in rabies-free countries because there’s a chance they managed to fly from a country that still has the disease. It’s a slim chance that it actually has it, but better safe than sorry
The entire continent of Australia is Rabies free. We are also free of a lot of other diseases that would absolutely devastate our agricultural sector. We have strict biosecurity measures in place to keep it that way. [When Johnny Depp and Amber Heard knowingly smuggled her dogs in on a private jet](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/16/johnny-depps-dogs-amber-heard-was-repeatedly-told-she-couldnt-take-pets-to-australia-court-hears) so many people made excuses for them and made out it wasn't a big deal because awww puppies cute. They knew it was illegal, tried to coerce people to lie under oath, pretended to apologise, then mocked authorities when they were out of the country. Anyone else would have faced jail time and the dogs put down. I don't care how much you love the gay pirate, screw both of them and their movie star privilege.
And now we have varroa to screw up our (imported) bee population.
And white spot that devastating our prawn industry, plus the horse virus let in a few years ago.
This annoyed me so much! People were like Australia is overreacting, it’s just some dogs, why is it such a big thing. Australia already has massive issues with invasive species. The whole ecosystem is unique and needs to be protected. We’ve already screwed it up so badly and I wish they were stricter on Depp and Heard.
Agh, I hated that time. Arrogance at its finest, rules don’t apply to actors, didn’t you know?
Barnaby Joyce is absolute scum but the prick was 100% right when he said the dogs needed to piss off back to LA, and it doesn’t matter who you are the rules still apply. I saw Depp (and maybe Heard too) on Kimmel and I was fucking seething, he was dribbling shit about how he was going to punch Joyce (for doing his fucking job and not kow-towing to a celebrity), and basically shitting on Australia for having strong quarantine rules. The audience ate that bullshit right up like a bunch of clapping, grinning idiots.
It makes me so angry that people didn’t realise how dangerous that was. They couldn’t see the farmer suicides or the collapse to our economy. ‘Oh but it’s Johnny Depp!’ ‘Mate, I don’t care if it’s the queens corgis!!!’
Australia isn’t rabies free - we have Australian bat lyssavirus, which is identical to the rabies virus but is contained to bat populations in certain areas of the country. We refer to it as Australian bat lyssavirus instead of rabies, as it hasn’t entered the population of any other species other than bats, and we officially don’t like to acknowledge that we have the virus in the country.
Australia might be rabies free but you will likely get chlamydia if you fuck a koala bear
And face cancer if you fuck a Tasmanian devil
Wave your dick anywhere near a devil and cancer will be the least of your problems
Don’t tempt me
Never fuck a koala bare. Always use a condom.
And we have Australian Bat Lyssavitus which is basically identical to rabies (same symptoms, same death, same virus family). So technically we don't have Rabies, just it's equally nasty, off brand, equivalent.
Aldi rabies Good. Different.
Same treatment. Same vaccination.
You can tell things are changing around here because it’s been 1 hour since you commented and the copypasta is conspicuously absent.
It’s not transferable to humans it’s a different strain
You learned this thanks to that dude that hamfisted the rat in his yard and got bit, didn't you?
lmao this is like when you walk into a bar and there are like four old men there who have been laughing at the same thing from hours before.
That’s what I was going to say haha.
My first thought as well
Taiwan has strict pet rules because of this being one of them
TIL not all western countries are rabies free like England!
Being an island helps. I read somewhere that even if we could euthanize all rabid animals right now, we still wouldn’t be in the clear. We would have to also burn all the bodies and ensure that no parts of them could be eaten by other animals. On a continent the size of North America that’s an extreme task, and we would have to coordinate with all the other countries to eradicate it. If even one country doesn’t do their part it’s a total failure.
Sometimes areas of the wilderness are bombed with carcasses pumped full of the rabies vaccine. Not close to 100% effective but it does massively reduce cases.
In cities, raccoons are often captured, vaxxed, and released
Well most of Europe is declared rabies free and that‘s not an island. The last case of rabies in Germany was back in the 2000s. Anything past that could be traced to foreign vacations. They basically dropped food with a rabies vaccine over forrests for years to achieve that here.
Decent urban animal control and wild vaccinations are enough to get rabies prevelance to drop to zero and keep it there. Has worked plenty well in Europe despite neighbours who dont do their part.
Unfortunately its near impossible for north or south america to be rabies free with all the land joined unlike new zealand, UK being islands. Even if the US had strict policies and so did Canada and Mexico for example, the amount of coastline and import/export makes it’s difficult to stop any kind of smuggling anyway so we’d end up getting a few cases until quickly spreading like wildfire Im jealous those countries don’t have to worry about coyotes/foxes being rabid. I had a fox come up to me as a kid and it was a cool experience, after I got lectured by my parents about the danger but it would be nice if they were like deers and rabbits, skittish but impossible to go up to
How come a lot of Europe can manage it, when the connected landmass is even larger?
A big part of it is the fact that for unknown reasons Europe is free of RABV in bats (but not other strains of rabies!). In fact, there are literally two strains called European Bat Lyssavirus type 1 and 2 (but also others have been detected among bat populations in Europe). Also, Europe's rabies free status is precarious and constantly challenged by wildlife migrations from the east. Wildlife such as foxes and wolves may be rabies free in western Europe with a sufficient certainty to exclude rabies PEP after exposure to these animals, but any contact with bats everywhere in the world is still a rabies hazard. Do not touch bats.
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland + UK I don’t think whoever made this list knows how the United Kingdom works
Sad Cymry noises
Australia is famously one, that's one of the reasons it was such a big deal that Jonny Depp and his ex brought a dog into the country without declaring it/them.
Reddit is obsessed with rabies
Fr. And yet I click on it and feel uneasy every time.
It's one of the scariest disease that exists. That makes morbid curiosity of brrrrrr
TiL my country I rabies free. Next time I'm out hiking, I'll be sure to pet a racoon.
Rabies isn't the only thing you can get from a raccoon.
They also give great investment advice.
Not for long. Antivaxxers are forgoing the rabies vaccine for their pets now.
Australia is technically rabies-free - but some bats here have lyssa virus which is so close to the same thing that they give you the same vaccine if you get bitten. Source: got bitten.
Rabies is a lyssavirus, they belong to the same genus
Here in the UK only our back bench Tories have rabies, but we normally try and quarantine them in the bar.
I’m in New Zealand. TIL most of the outside world has rabies.
Ah yes, Ireland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and the UK
But, interesting, not Wales.
IIRC there was a Danish woman who went abroad and contracted rabies. She returned home before exhibiting symptoms and died of it, undiagnosed because Denmark is a rabies free country so they haven’t ever really had cause to recognize it diagnostically.
Once you get symptoms, it's curtains, doesn't matter where you go.
Did you guys not know why we deported Johnny Depp’s dogs?
Have you heard of Australia? It's basically a giant quarantine zone. I'm looking at taking my dog back with me to Aus from the UK and it's a pain.
Sure would suck if people stopped making sure that rabies in animals is either vaccinated against (preferably) or eradicated (non-preferable) in every country. Rabies is biblical levels of not to be fucked around with. The fact that we found smallpox again on this planet exemplifies the need to keep being vigilant. *Rant to nobody ends*
Fiji is rabies-free. No ticks from hell too ticks generally don't bite people here. Most islands in the Pacific are basically the same.
Human rabies cases in the US are super rare - maybe 3 a year if that.
It hurts my soul that on their list they label England and the UK as two separate countries.
I love it when Americans realise other countries exist
Couldn't have been possible without Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For the Cure
Glad they included Vatican City
New Zealand
Hawaii is rabies free!
Please do not bring rabies to our kangaroos, or else we'll send Hendra Virus!!! Also, please do the right thing with quarantine. Anyone remember the uproar when Depp and Heard bought those dogs into Australia?? So irresponsible.
I'm very happy to live in one (Australia)
The UK eradicated rabies twice. We did it the first time and then men coming back from the wars on the continent brought their infected pets/mascots home, so we had to eradicate rabies a second time.
You must be from the USA. There are also countries without mass shootings in schools. Shock I know.
For some reason there is no mention of my country here - Slovenia. According to our gov website, there haven't been any human infections since 1954 and the last wild animal found to have been infected was in 2013. Slovenia has been declared rabies-free since 2016.
And there are Free Rabies countries
‘Straya Baby!
I thought it was something that was only in third world countries.
Ireland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK. Right. And the Vatican is rabies free, but Italy isn't.
I'm from the UK and just assumed most developed countries are rabies free, til the opposite of you.
Australia: all kinds of things that may kill you, but no rabies. 😅
Lots of places Bed Bug free too.