MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Vol. 2, No. 10 
Page 3 
VJ-61-P.-3 F. Greeley, J. Ellis 
A paper on the effects of calcium deficiency in hen pheasants was pre¬ 
pared, submitted and accepted for presentation at the Midwest Wildlife Conference 
at Minneapolis, Minnesota, in December. 
An article entitled "California Pheasants in Southern Illinois," was pre¬ 
pared and accepted for publication in Illinois Wildl ife. 
Field data collected from the study of "California" pheasants on the 
Bellmont area were analyzed, and preparation of a job completion report was begun. 
###•&##*#******** SPECIAL NOTICE ft*******#*#**##** 
The cooperative research program of the Illinois Department of Conser¬ 
vation and the Illinois Natural History Survey involves the maintenance of a 
colony of captive raccoons in Urbana. This colony is extremely useful to the 
research project of which Glen Sanderson is in charge. 
Normally, the raccoons in this colony are healthy and rarely become ill 
or die 0 On September 6, however, a young male which had been live-trapped on 
September 2 in Champaign County was found dead. At the time, it seemed probable 
that the animal had died as a result of injury received in trapping and handling. 
On September 30, however, two more raccoons were found dead, and, from October 1 
through October 27, 11 more died. Up to the present time, 13 of the 21 young- 
of-the-year raccoons and two of the 28 adult animals which were in the colony on 
September 1 have died. 
As soon as this mortality became evident, it was called to the attention 
of veterinarians at the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Illinois, 
and the dead animals were submitted for determination of the cause of death. 
Every effort is being made to identify the disease and its cause. The disease 
may have been introduced into the colony when wild raccoons were added. 
The symptoms of the disease are fairly consistent. There is a severe 
diarrhea accompanied by a foul odor. Sometimes the stool is bloody, and some¬ 
times it is of the consistency of paste. In some cases animals live for a week 
or ten days after they first appear to be sick, but in other cases the animals 
show typical symptoms one day and are dead the next. The fur is unkempt and 
"scruffy," especially in animals which are ill for several days. For one to two 
days before death the animals show loss of appetite but do drink water. The 
animals are lethargic, especially the day before death. There is only one 
instance of a sick animal which recovered. 
After death, a watery fluid with a foul odor may drain out at both the 
mouth and anus when the animal is lifted. All of the animals show severely 
inflamed intestines with the posterior one-third nearly always red to bright red. 
The cause of the disease is unknown, but the symptoms are similar to those of 
feline enteritis (sometimes called feline distemper) which was reported among 
raccoons in Wisconsin in the late 1930*s. 
