Townsend’s Chipmunk: 24-745 In September of 2024, we received a call at the wildlife center about a juvenile chipmunk found alone in the grass, who appeared to be in rough shape. After asking the callers to send us a picture to our email, we realized just how dire the situation was. The chipmunk was emaciated, and had what appeared to be a large lump on his lower abdomen. We asked the rescuers to bring him in right away, so that he could get the care he desperately needed. Upon arrival, our new patient’s attitude was uncharacteristic of a chipmunk; unmoving, quiet, and lacking concern for the things happening to and around him. In any animal, this behavior is never a good sign. He was indeed both severely emaciated and dehydrated, and the cause of those two symptoms was something that we dread seeing in the clinic: botflies. Botflies belong to the Oestridae family, and at the larval stage, are parasitic. Adults deposit their eggs either directly onto a host or sometimes use a vector, such as a mosquito or tick, which then infect a host mammal. Incubated by the warmth of the host, the larvae hatch from their eggs and burrow into the flesh and tissue, eating their way through the body. On one end of the body, botfly larvae have a hook that allows them to attach themselves to the lining of the tunnel they’ve created, which makes getting them out a challenge. In our typical botfly cases, we can simply pull the larvae out with a sterile pair of hemostats. In more extreme cases where the larvae sit in the very back of the tunnel they’ve created, we can either flush them out with sterile liquid solution, or block the entrance with a layer of Vaseline so that the larvae is forced to come to the surface to breathe. In the case of our chipmunk however, the botfly had become so large that it could not be pulled out of its tunnel. Under anesthesia, our skilled veterinarian carefully enlarged the entrance wound, and excised the botfly larvae. Luckily for our chipmunk, the parasite didn’t do much damage to the body cavity, and the internal wounds were not life threatening. After suturing the entrance closed and making sure he woke up from the anesthesia with no problems, he was put on a strict medication regimen with an antibiotic and pain killer. Every day we checked his wound, made sure he was well hydrated and warm, and hand fed him until he was able to eat on his own. After some time, he started consistently gaining weight, was active in his enclosure, and started looking like a healthy chipmunk again. He was well on the road to recovery! However, in mid-October, our chipmunk became lethargic, was refusing to eat, and was losing weight for reasons unknown. Unfortunately, he did not make it through the night. Because his recovery seemed to be going so well, the staff at PSWC was heartbroken. We needed to figure out why he had started to go downhill. Our veterinarian performed a necropsy, and sent several samples to the lab to be tested for any abnormalities, or signs of illness that we may have missed. As it turns out, our chipmunk died as a result of a type of cancer called multicentric lymphoma, present in his spleen and liver. The prevalence of cancer in chipmunks is not well documented to say the least. Staff at PSWC with years of experience however, can say that this was a first for them.