24/7 WILDLIFE CONTROL
Port St. Lucie, Florida

Your local Animal Control &
Wildlife Removal Company

1-772-217-6132

24/7 Wildlife Control in Port St. Lucie, FL is your local Wildlife Professional! We provide full-service nuisance animal removal services throughout Port St. Lucie, Florida. We specialize in the removal and control of wild, nuisance and pest animals from your Port St. Lucie, Florida home. We perform Animal Removal and Wildlife Control services on nuisance animals including, but not limited to, Squirrels, Armadillos, Bats, Snakes, Mice, Rats, Bees, Moles, Gophers, Skunks, Raccoons, Possums, and Birds. We are experts in the field of Animal Control and Wildlife Removal, everyone on staff is fully educated and properly trained in the field of wildlife biology. We service all areas of Port St. Lucie, FL.

Animal removal in Port St. Lucie is closely regulated by Animal Control and by Florida Fish & Wildlife (Florida Wildlife Control) to ensure the humane and proper treatment of the wild animals being removed. Before you hire any animal removal professionals in Port St. Lucie, FL you should check to make sure they have the proper licensing and paperwork from the County and State and that they have the proper insurance to perform work on your home. The most common calls for nuisance critter removal for Port St. Lucie, Florida are squirrel removal, raccoon removal, possum removal, rodent removal, armadillo removal and bat removal. We are Port St. Lucie, Florida’s local Wildlife Control & Animal Removal Specialists.

Raccoon Removal in Port St. Lucie, FL

how to get rid of raccoons

Raccoons: one of the most destructive nuisance wildlife animals in Port St. Lucie, FL. Raccoons are very smart and adaptable animals and are well-suited to suburban life in Port St. Lucie, Florida. They will dig through outdoor trash for a meal, eat your outdoor dog or cat food, or even find access to your home’s living space and take food out of your cupboards. Raccoons should be removed immediately.

Raccoons leave behind bacteria in your attic and on your insulation through their feces and urine. There are a countless number of bacteria and health concerns related to the feces and urine of raccoons. It requires immediate removal and full sanitation to protect the human inhabitants of the home. Raccoons in Port St. Lucie, Florida can cause a great deal of damage to the home, and that damage is generally not covered by your homeowner’s insurance. This Damage done by raccoons can be very expensive, but the larger expense can be avoided by calling a wildlife professional immediately to visit your Port St. Lucie, FL home, determine that there are indeed raccoons, set traps and remove them quickly.

Damage done by raccoons in Port St. Lucie, Florida includes, but is not limited to, chewing on electrical wires running through the attic space, tearing into the ductwork in the attic space, leaving their feces and urine (along with the many bacterias present in raccoon droppings) in your attic, and destruction of drywall. Raccoons can also create problems in home security systems, and can even fall through the ceilings into your living space.

When raccoons are found in and around your home in Port St. Lucie, Florida, they can present a significant threat to the health of your family and the safety of your home. Raccoons and their droppings are known to carry several strains of bacteria and even diseases and other airborne agents that are harmful and easily spread to humans and domestic pets who share the same space as the raccoon. Raccoon roundworm is a very dangerous and potentially deadly parasite that is found in raccoon feces.

Removal of the raccoon from your Port St. Lucie, FL home is crucial. Raccoons are nocturnal animals so you may hear sounds of the raccoons in your Port St. Lucie Florida attic during the early morning, late evening, and overnight hours. When you hear these sounds call 24/7 Wildlife Control, your Port St. Lucie, Florida wildlife removal experts to assess the situation. We will humanely trap and remove the offending raccoon, or multiple raccoons. Once the raccoon has been removed we will restrict access to your home to any future raccoons by closing all access points, repairing all damage done by the raccoon, and sanitizing your attic space to remove all harmful bacteria carried by the raccoons.

24/7 Wildlife Control can repair all damages done by raccoons in your Port St. Lucie, Florida home, including roof repair, shingle repair and replacement, soffit and fascia repair, contaminated insulation removal, outside hole repair, electrical wiring repair, air conditioning and ductwork, drywall removal and repair and more as needed to repair the damage done by the raccoon.

If you think you have signs of raccoons in your Port St. Lucie, FL attic, call 24/7 Wildlife Control for a full assessment, removal of the offending raccoon, closure of holes made by the raccoon, and thorough cleaning of the attic where the raccoon may have left behind contaminated feces and urine.

Rodent Control and Rat Removal in Port St. Lucie, FL

how to get rid of rats

In Port St. Lucie, Florida you will encounter typically four different species or types of rodents: Roof Rats: Roof Rats, Fruit Rats, Norway Rats, or Black Rats. At 24/7 Wildlife Control we offer trapping of the rats in you Port St. Lucie FL home, complete exclusions to seal your home and prevent access by other rats, attic sanitation and restoration.

Trapping rats takes a high level of skill, suburban rats, like the ones you’ll find in your Port St. Lucie, Florida home, are highly adept and have learned to be very smart to avoid humans so they can stay in the comfort of your home. At 24/7 Wildlife Control our staff is well trained and knows how to locate the offending rats, their passage ways, their scent trails, their nests, and how to properly bait and trap rats.

Snap traps, the kind you find at your local hardware store are good for one or two rats, but after the first few catches the other rats in the colony learn to avoid your bait and traps, leaving you with still more rats and no solution to your rodent infestation problem. The key to successful rat trapping in Port St. Lucie FL is minimizing the scent of humans on the traps and knowing where to put them on the rodent scent trail, a skill that everyone at 24/7 Wildlife Control is taught and exercises frequently because rodents are a common year-round problem in Port St. Lucie Florida.

Rodents in Port St. Lucie, Florida are a nuisance, but they can also be a hazard to your home. They will gain access to the smallest spaces, they breed frequently and are known to have litters of rat pups of up to two-dozen at one time, and will cause damage to your home. Rats chew on the insulation in your attic to make the nest, rats will defecate and urinate on every surface of your attic, they will chew on our electrical wires, your home security wires, your air conditioning ductwork, your water piping, and will even chew on your walls to create more or larger access points to your attic. All of this can potentially create dangerous problems to your home and property. Rats also carry diseases, as do their favorite food, insects, and those diseases are left behind in their droppings in your attic and on your insulation.

Removal of the rats should be done immediately after noticing signs of a rodent infestation in your Port St. Lucie home. Signs of a rat or rodent infestation include scurrying sounds during the early morning or late evening times, holes in the roof or ceiling, foul odor of rat urine and feces, and the sight of a rodent in your home. It is not recommended that homeowners or occupants of the home attempt to catch the rodents themselves, a call to 24/7 Wildlife Control will begin the process of trapping, removal, sanitation, restoration, and exclusion of your attic and home. All of the work related to rats and rodents in the Port St. Lucie, Florida area is guaranteed with at one to three-year renewable warranty.

Opossum Trapping and Removal in Port St. Lucie FL

how to get rid of opossums

24/7 Wildlife control specializes in the removal and relocation of opossums in Port St. Lucie Florida. Opossums, more commonly known as Possums are a nuisance to residents of Port St. Lucie, Florida. They come onto your property, search through your garbage for a meal, will eat from your outdoor dog or cat bowl, and can even drink from your open pool. While the opossum is on his hunt for food he leaves possum feces and urine all around your outdoor spaces.

Opossums also like to make their home in your attic. They will exploit any opening they find in your roof line including openings in the soffit, the shingle space, roof valleys, roof vents, air conditioning openings, and more, and if a hole isn’t large enough the opossum will chew and scratch at the weak spot they’ve found until they have created a space large enough for them to move in and out of with ease causing damage to your Port St. Lucie home. While in your attic the possum will create a habitat for itself that will include chewing on your insulation, making a nest for itself and any babies it will have during the spring months. The mother will carry her young in her pouch, she is a marsupial, for several months, but soon the young ones will outgrow the pouch and will use the nest space she created in your attic. Possums also carry fleas and ticks and can create many problems for your domestic house pets including the continuation of a flea infestation. If you are having a problem with fleas on your pets and the vet’s office isn’t able to help control the problem, you may have a possum or a family of possums living in your Port St. Lucie Florida yard carrying fleas and causing the infestation.

Opossums are dirty animals and they can carry many diseases and bacteria including rabies, they are an unwelcome guest in your Port St. Lucie, Florida home. Signs of the opossum include holes in your home, sounds of walking through your attic, the view of the possum in your outdoor space and yard, and evidence of an animal riffling through your garbage. Possums should be addressed quickly with a phone call to 24/7 Wildlife Control. We offer free ontrol. We offer free inspections for opossums in Port St. Lucie FL and in some cases we are able to work with your homeowner’s insurance company on parts of the removal and exclusion that they cover. Having an expert like 24/7 Wildlife Control to help you solve your opossum problems will ease your mind and help you have a clean, safe home for your family.

Bat Control and Bat Removal in Port St. Lucie FL

how to get rid of bats

Bat removal in Florida is extremely important and often both difficult and dangerous and should only be performed by a wildlife expert like 24/7 Wildlife Control. Bats are plentiful in Port St. Lucie FL and can be found in all buildings, homes, churches, businesses, stores, restaurants, apartment complexes, essentially any structure in Florida can be a home to a colony of bats. Bats in Florida like to fly in the highest spaces of 15 feet or taller, this helps them avoid their natural predators, that’s why the like to make their home in your attics, especially in the two or three story homes and buildings.

Bats inside your Port St. Lucie Florida homes generally defecate in one specific area, and that feces, referred to a guano is very dangerous to humans and is full of disease bacteria that include histopalsmosis and the hanta virus. This guano builds up quickly, especially when there are large numbers of bats in the attic and will cause health problems for the human inhabitants of the home.

Evidence of bats in your Port St. Lucie FL home include noises during the early evening and dusk hours, hearing the bat’s usage of eco-location or chirping, a rancid smell of bat guano, and the site of bats inside your home or in your outdoor areas. You should call 24/7 Wildlife Control for the humane removal of the bats, bat control, a full cleaning and sanitation of your attic against the diseases bats carry, and sealing of all entry points created by the bats. At 24/7 Wildlife Control we specialize in bat removal and offer a guarantee on our work.

Bats are a protected species in Florida, they help to control the mosquito population and are extremely beneficial to the environment, but they are a health hazard when they decide to make their home in your Port St. Lucie Florida home. Call 24/7 Wildlife Control for the safe and humane removal of the bats, a thorough cleaning of the space they occupied, and sealing of all entrances they used to gain access to your home.

Squirrel Removal in Port St. Lucie FL

how to get rid of squirrels

It is very common in Port St. Lucie Florida for 24/7 Wildlife Control to have frequent squirrel removal calls in the spring and fall, mating season for squirrels, but because of the usually warm weather Port St. Lucie has, squirrels can create problems for homeowners at any time of the year.

Squirrels are very resourceful animals and if they cannot find access to your home they can make their own by chewing through most types of home building materials. In Port St. Lucie FL most squirrels will exploit existing openings in the structure of your home using openings in the roof line, underneath shingles, small openings in roof over hangs, loose fascia or soffits and even roof vent openings to gain access to your attic. Evidence you have squirrels include hearing the animals running overhead during the day time hours, they are not nocturnal like rodents, seeing the animals leaving holes in your home or structure, and evidence of chewing on items to create nests.

Squirrels are more than a nuisance in Port St. Lucie, Florida. They will chew on wires, electrical and security systems, they will make holes in the walls, they will chew on the air conditioning ducting, and their nests can clog roof vents creating fire hazards. Squirrels poop in your attic. If you think you have squirrels in your attic in Port St. Lucie FL you should call 24/7 Wildlife control immediately for an inspection and removal. We will set live, humane traps for squirrels and remove squirrels to an area where humans and homes are not found. After complete removal we will return, clean and sanitize your home, and seal all entry points created by the squirrels. All of our squirrel work is guaranteed with a one to three-year renewable warranty.

Armadillo Removal

how to get rid of bats

Armadillos can be a more than a pesky garden pest in Port St. Lucie. These invasive species will dig burrows that can damage the foundation of your house in Port St. Lucie and also create ideal Gardens for other animals including venomous snakes, skunks, and rats!

The nine-banded armadillo in Port St. Lucie is an armored mammal that likes the same sorts of habitat that we tend to build our Gardens. That is dry forested areas. Armadillos can weigh as much as 20 lbs and is about the size of a typical house cat. Armadillos in Port St. Lucie are covered in a thick bone-like armor called Keratin. That is the same tissue that makes up our fingernails. This is to protect them from predators in Port St. Lucie. The nine-banded armadillo also has a rather unique defense mechanism- it jumps. If a predator such as a dog or coyote approaches an armadillo, the armadillo will jump up to 4 feet high with surprising force hitting the predator in the mouth or face. This will disorient the predator and can even break its jaw allowing the armadillo to make its escape in Port St. Lucie. This can be especially troublesome when your dog in Port St. Lucie gets too curious with an armadillo that has wandered into your yard!

The first signs that you have an armadillo in your yard in Port St. Lucie are going to be large divots in the ground. These will be about the size and shape of an ice cream cone. These holes in Port St. Lucie will be non-continuous and will not connect with other holes. If your yard has smaller holes it is more likely squirrels or if your yard has lots of holes and mounds that all seem to connect, it is likely that you have a feral hog problem. If you continue to see these holes in Port St. Lucie from armadillos, it is important to call a professional to come remove it from your yard. Armadillos in Port St. Lucie are notoriously difficult to trap as bait does not work. Instead, an experienced trapper must determine where the armadillo is travelling and in what direction, then the trapper must predict where in Port St. Lucie the armadillo will be next and place traps along that path. Sometimes, drift fences are set up to increase the chances of capture. We normally will set traps for a 2 week period of time to capture and remove all the armadillos possible for our customers.

Snake Removal

how to get rid of squirrels

Snakes in your yard, pool deck, under your deck or in your home in Port St. Lucie? Scared and unsure what to do next? You've come to the right place! When dealing with any type of snake in your home or on your property in Port St. Lucie the best way to remove them is trapping. Trapping is the most humane and successful way to rid them from your home/ office. The first thing that you want to do is set traps. Placing them in spot where you are noticing a lot of activity. Using multiple traps will assure that you can trap them in multiple areas in Port St. Lucie. To get them into the traps you want to make sure that you are baiting them correctly. If the snakes are hanging out around your trash, then try baiting with trash from your garbage as that is what they are used to eating. Cat food may also be effective however you may end up attracted other animals such as cats, raccoons, opossums, etc. If you normally leave cat / dog food out, we recommend cleaning it up right away as this will attract all kinds of wildlife that you don’t want.

Snake in Port St. Lucie are smart, sometimes they are able to reach in and grab food from a trap without setting it off and sometimes they will even flip the trap over. Try staking the trap down to prevent them from flipping it. Then you can wrap your bait in hardware cloth and hang it from the wire from the roof of the trap right above the trip pan. Eventually the snake will get frustrated and will then sit on the pan. Live snake trapping in Port St. Lucie can take time. We would recommend keeping the traps up for at least two weeks. Patience is key, make sure to leave the traps alone and give it time. Bait is usually good for about 72 hours but snakes are used to eating garbage so they are not going to care if it starts to stink a little.

OK, you’ve caught some snakes… Now what? This is the easiest part, relocate them in Port St. Lucie. There are trapping rules and regulations so you always want to check with your local wildlife agency such as the fish and wildlife commission in Florida. Generally, for relocation you have to have a 40-acre plot of land to release them on with permission from the owner. You always want to make sure that you are releasing them to an area that they will survive, areas that are their natural habitats, like forests or even a local wildlife preserve. Venomous snakes cannot be relocated so please call a professional in Port St. Lucie anytime you are dealing with a snake you think may be dangerous. Whenever you have a wild animal in a trap you want to make sure that you are handling it properly to keep the animal, and yourself safe. Never put your fingers in a trap, you do not want to mess with a wild animal. If you are scratched or bitten you would then have to deal with going to get tested for rabies. When you do have an animal in a cage in Port St. Lucie the law states you have to release them within 24 hours of them being caught. The longer they are in the cage the more the animal will suffer and the goal is to humanely relocate them so the sooner you release them the better! After you have chosen where you are going to release the snakes and have carefully transported them there you want to make sure to correctly open the cage. Point the trap away from you and in the direction you want the snake to go. ALWAYS stand behind the cage when opening. Most cases the snakes will slither right out, in the event that they are hanging out and not leaving you should raise your arms above your head like a bear and make loud noises to scare the snake off.

Skunk Removal

how to get rid of skunks

As we all know, skunks in Port St. Lucie smell! But did you know skunks in Port St. Lucie can spray you from up to 10 feet away? Shooting out from their anal scent glands skunks will only spray as a defense mechanism. There are 2 glands located on either side of the anus, filled with a sulfur mixture of chemicals that have a distinct and offensive smell. The smell is so strong that it will even deter bears! The muscles surrounding the anus allow the skunk to spray accurately from as far as 10 feet away! The chemical mixture will cause irritation and in some cases temporary blindness. The smell is also so pungent it can be detected by humans up to a mile away in Port St. Lucie! Skunks scent glands carry up to 15 cc of spray that can be used between 5 or 6 times. After the supply is depleted it can take up to ten days to produce more, because of this skunks are reluctant to use their spray. They will attempt to warn predators in Port St. Lucie first by stomping their feet, hissing, or even doing a handstand dance. Once the skunk is out of spray it is otherwise defenseless against predators until it can produce more. During their mating season, February through March, female skunks will sometimes spray their male suitors to let them know that they are not interested (straight to the point with these ladies). It would take a lot for you to be sprayed, but it is not uncommon for your curious dog to get a face full or even a trapper. We had a tech who had a run in with a skunk and was sprayed on his first day out on the field! Although it is most common practice to use tomato juice to rid the smell, it has been proven more effective by the Humane Society to use a mixture of Diluted Hydrogen Peroxide, Baking soda, and dish soap.

If you continue to see skunks or are smelling them around your home, it is important to call a professional to come remove it from your yard in Port St. Lucie. Skunks are notoriously difficult to trap, they are very quick and can climb on top of the trap and remove the bait from the outside. Instead, an experienced trapper must determine where the skunk is travelling and in what direction, then the trapper must predict where the skunk will be next and place traps along that path. Sometimes, drift fences are set up to increase the chances of capture. We will also tie the bait down in the back of the trap in Port St. Lucie so the skunk cannot remove it unless inside the trap. We normally will set traps for a 2 week period of time to capture and remove all the armadillos possible for our customers in Port St. Lucie.

Dead Animal Removal

how to get rid of dead animals

Often we get calls from customers in Port St. Lucie not dealing with a live animal, but a dead one in their home or on their property. Usually the first indication is that there is a horrible smell coming from somewhere in the home in Port St. Lucie. Sometimes there is even flies or a stain on the wall/ceiling. Nine times out of ten though, they’re calling about the over powering, disgusting smell. Whenever an animal dies it naturally starts to decay and will start to omit an awful odor. After roughly 3 days, that smell is so bad it may have you wanting to move out of Port St. Lucie! There are a lot of factors into how bad a carcass will smell, such as size, state of decomposition, temperature in home, and location.

Obviously the larger the animal the more it’s going to stink, simply because there is more decaying flesh. How long the animal has been dead is a huge factor as well, at first the smell will be weak, then around 3 days it’s going to get much worse. Finally, after maggots eat the carcass, the smell will lessen and eventually dissipate as you are left with a skeleton. Temperature and location in Port St. Lucie are also a factor; decomposition is sped up by high heat (which we all know is abundant in Florida). The hotter it is, the faster it’s going to decompose and the more it’s going to smell! Say you had rats and you put out some poison, the poison does its job and kills the rats in Port St. Lucie. Don’t see the problem? Stay with me. Poison does not kill them on the spot, they are not going to lay down and die in a nice little easily accessible place for you to clean up later. Nope, they are going to crawl into your insulation, walls, crawl space and there they are going to die and begin decomposing. See the problem now?

If you think that you are having an issue with Dead animals in the Wall or dead animals in the attic or even dead animals under your home in Port St. Lucie give us a call. We will send a manager in Port St. Lucie out there to remove the dead animals. We will also treat the area to remove any of the bacteria and odor affiliated with a dead animal infestation. Finally if we need to we can also perform exclusion work where we seal off any of the access points that the animal used to get into the home to guarantee no additional animals will come back.

wildlife trapping

Trapping

how to to prevent wildlife entry

Exclusion

cleaning up animal feces

Sanitation

cleaning up animal feces

Attic Restoration

Port St. Lucie, FL Humane Animal Trapping

The best, safest, most humane way to deal with nuisance animals and pests in your home or on your property in Port St. Lucie FL is to remove them by using the appropriate bait and traps according to the type of animal. Each animal and wildlife trapping and removal is unique and presents and should be done by a professional. 24/7 Wildlife Control and its professional staff offers free inspections to determine which animal is causing problems, the best way to bait, trap, and humanely remove the animal, and then seal the access holes the animal used to gain access to your home or business. Call today to schedule your free inspection in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

Port St. Lucie, FL Animal Repairs

After 24/7 Wildlife Control has determined what animals are in your Port St. Lucie FL home and has safely removed them the best way to prevent a re-infestation is to seal all of their entry points by doing what we call an exclusion. During our free inspection an inspection will walk around your home indoors and out including the attic and the roof and note all openings that have allowed the animals to enter in the past. He will then begin the exclusion using only metal and concrete, materials that an animal cannot chew through to re-gain access to your home, will use proper scent deterrents based on the type of animal, and completely seal the home. Our exclusion work is guaranteed by a one to three-year renewable warranty.

Port St. Lucie, FL Attic Sanitation

After the nuisance animals have been removed from your attic the attic requires a cleaning to fully remove all the urine, feces, bacteria, fleas, ticks, and other unsavory items left behind by wildlife. These hazards, if not properly taken care of in a timely manner will cause health problems for the human inhabitants including respiratory trouble, diseases, skin irritation, and more. 24/7 Wildlife Control will complete a full clean out of your attic including soiled insulation, all urine and feces, and any animal carcasses leaving your attic as clean as the day the structure was built.

Port St. Lucie, FL Attic Restoration

Wild animals can cause a lot of damage to your home in Port St. Lucie. Especially to your attic space and the insulation if they’ve chosen to live there. Removing the animal is sometimes the least of your concerns. Rodent, Raccoon or bat infestations can leave you with your insulation needing to be replaced in Port St. Lucie. Once the affected insulation had been replaced, treating the attic with an anti-microbial application that will break down all feces and urine and sanitize your home of all bacteria and disease. This will ensure that you no longer have to worry about health issues. The benefits of the Antimicrobial Attic Treatment are it will get into every little nook and cranny of your attic to ensure that there is nothing left behind. Finally once the Attic has been fully clean and treated we will install new Pest Control Cellulose insulation into the attic to the appropriate energy saving levels. When we are all said and done our attic restoration team in Port St. Lucie will have your attic looking like it never had an animal infestation at all!

November Monthly Update: Invasive Animals in the Winter

To survive the cold winter months, bats hibernate. This is because there is not enough insects flying around in the winter to support an active metabolism. Bats require specific temperatures for hibernation ranging from 35-40 degrees Fahrenheit. Big Brown bats have figured out that attics can provide the perfect temperature for survival and have adapted to hibernating in attics rather than caves.

Raccoons will den up and become less active during the winter, although they don’t hibernate completely. They normally den in hollow trees, rock crevices, or other animals’ nests, but sometimes that winter den choice might be an attic or chimney in a home. They mostly enter homes at the roofline by using tree branches or downspouts and then pushing their way through louvers or soffits, or they may climb directly up the siding. They cause damage when they try to create or enlarge entry holes, bend downspouts or gutters, chew holes in siding, rip off boards and shingles, and damage soffits or vent louvers. Inside attics, raccoons can tear up insulation and might rip insulation off of pipes or ducts to use for nesting material. They can cause a fire hazard when they chew on wires. They use one area in the attic as a latrine; accumulated urine will smell and can leak through the ceiling below. Do not try to clean up a raccoon’s latrine without special precautions.

Squirrels may live in trees without the blessing of central heating, but when it gets cold, they, like the rest of us, want to snuggle up to something warm. Like a house. In the winter, it is harder for the squirrel to find new nesting material. Tree leaves that the squirrel uses to construct a new nest have fallen from the trees. The squirrel may have to improvise to find a new home. This may be sheds or barns, non-running cars or trucks, covered porches, patios or a neighbor's attic. Often they settle for squeezing through the louvers that keep the attic cool in summer, or parachuting down the chimney.

As the season turns and winter approaches, rats will be seeking out warm places; tis the season for rodents and a time to ensure your home is as rat-proof as possible. Trim the trees, check your vents and window screens, doggy doors, any gaps between the floors and doors, and put away their favorite foods – fruits and nuts. Rats often cause damage to the structure of your home, they chew on electrical wires, damage insulation in the attic with urine, and they transmit parasites and diseases. The urine, droppings, and saliva rats leave behind when inhaled by humans can cause Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS), a virus that although rare, is potentially deadly.