Animal shelter under quarantine

By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — Until further notice, the Houlton Humane Society is under quarantine due to an outbreak of ringworm.
    According to Cathy Davis, spokesperson for the Houlton Humane Society, about four weeks ago, shelter officials first identified a case of ringworm at the Callaghan Road shelter. A veterinarian was called in to evaluate the situation and the results were staggering. A total of 75 cats had to be euthanized because of the disease.
    “Because ringworm is highly contagious, it was recommended that we immediately close the shelter until we determined how bad it was,” said Davis.
    The ringworm culture takes 14 days to mature, so all of the unaffected animals have to be tested twice. The shelter must pass two sets of cultures, which amounts to a 28-day period, before it can reopen. The shelter has been quarantined for about two weeks already, but the 28-day waiting period began Monday, meaning the quarantine cannot be lifted until April 19 at the earliest.
    A “woods lamp” was used to determine how prevalent the ringworm spores were inside the building. Similar to a black light, the spores from ringworm — which is a fungus and not a worm — glow bright green under a wood lamp.
    “Our entire community room glowed green,” Davis said. “It was on the walls, on the floor, on the air ducts. It was everywhere.”
    Davis said the building was stripped of all equipment, including the built-in cages, so that the walls, ceiling and floors could be sprayed with a highly concentrated bleach solution to kill the spores. Staff members who are working at the shelter must change their clothes before leaving the shelter so that no spores are carried home.
    “We had to clean out everything,” Davis said. Everything that could not be washed with bleach had to be thrown away, including cat beds and cat towers. We are just now completing that process.”
    While treatment for ringworm is relatively simple for humans, it is not so easy for animals, Davis said. Their conversations with other shelters that had to deal with this matter informed them that often times the animals die from the treatments.
    “From that point our veterinarian did some research on the subject, speaking with other vets and research facilities,” Davis said. “Everyone basically gave us the same recommendation. What we found was, at the Coastal Humane Society about a year ago, they had seven cases of ringworm. They tried to save those seven cats, but in the process of trying to save those seven, the spores continued to spread and they lost every animal in their shelter. We refused to lose every animal, so we made the heavy decision to put down those that tested positive.”
    At the time the outbreak was discovered, the shelter was housing 105 cats. Only 30 of those cats were spared, Davis said. The disease affected no dogs. All of the healthy animals have been relocated to a separate building, located adjacent to the shelter, which had been tested and no spores were found.
    To treat the remaining animals, the staff is conducting sulfur dips on the cats twice weekly, as well as oral medication.
    “They are not very happy about any of this,” Davis said. “The shelter smells like boiled eggs from the dip. The cats are all walking around dripping wet and really, really mad. The staff is all scratched up and bleeding. It’s been quite the experience.”
    Those animals that remain at the shelter cannot, by law, be adopted.
    “It is against the law to adopt known contagious animals,” Davis said. “Because of this, we are under quarantine. We can’t even have volunteers from the public come in to help clean. We are still taking in strays from our contract towns, but cannot accept any owner animals and are not allowed to do any adoptions until the quarantine is lifted.”
    Davis said the Houlton Humane Society was commended for its swift response by the Department of Agriculture.
    “This whole thing has been really upsetting,” Davis said. “The people that work there do so because they love animals. To have to euthanize a large number of animals has been heartbreaking.”