Black Death is Still Among Us

I was watching 'The Nature of Things' last night on the CBC. The show was about the re-introduction of black footed ferrets on the Canadian prairies after 70 years of being extinct. A vigorous strychnine dumping campaign to wipe out prairie dogs killed off this cute little ferret. You can see the video on the CBC site here. What made me sit up and go 'howdy!' was the discovery, a year after the ferrets had been re-introduced into the wild in Saskatchewan, that a nearby prairie dog colony had been wiped out by bubonic plague. That's right, the Black Death is alive and stalking rodents in the Canadian west.

In case you think I am making this up, here is an article from the Toronto Star on prairie dog deaths last year. I knew there were occasional cases in other parts of the world but it is very treatable with antibiotics. It is until an antibiotic resistant variety comes along.