Such a great question! If we were to do a more rigorous cost-effectiveness evaluation, this would be one of the first things we’d try to add to the model.
extreme weather and accidents (e.g. falling out of trees)
There’s even less research on the relative amounts of suffering from different causes of death, but rabies is a pretty good candidate for one of the worst deaths out there, because it causes extreme suffering over several days. (It’s tragically convenient that humans die of rabies and exhibit similar symptoms, so we can back up our guesses with first-hand reports and observations of behavior in a species we know well.) Canine distemper might be worse, because it also causes intense suffering but can last for weeks.
But most of the likely most common causes of raccoon deaths act much more quickly (some almost instantaneously), it seems like a pretty safe bet that rabies is substantially worse than most other raccoon deaths.
Such a great question! If we were to do a more rigorous cost-effectiveness evaluation, this would be one of the first things we’d try to add to the model.
As is too often the case with cause-specific mortality, we couldn’t find any great data on this. But based on our quick read of the literature and our general knowledge of natural history, @Simon Eckerström Liedholm and I think the leading candidates for counterfactual causes of raccoon death might be:
hunting and trapping (see, e.g., this study of raccoons in central Mississippi)
vehicle collisions
predation (by, e.g., coyotes, dogs, great-horned owls)
other diseases (e.g. canine distemper virus)
starvation
extreme weather and accidents (e.g. falling out of trees)
There’s even less research on the relative amounts of suffering from different causes of death, but rabies is a pretty good candidate for one of the worst deaths out there, because it causes extreme suffering over several days. (It’s tragically convenient that humans die of rabies and exhibit similar symptoms, so we can back up our guesses with first-hand reports and observations of behavior in a species we know well.) Canine distemper might be worse, because it also causes intense suffering but can last for weeks.
But most of the likely most common causes of raccoon deaths act much more quickly (some almost instantaneously), it seems like a pretty safe bet that rabies is substantially worse than most other raccoon deaths.