News Brief by Kip Hansen
The U.S. CDC has issued one of its Vital Signs press releases that readers in the United States should be aware of, especially those living in more rural areas.
In the classic of modern American literature, To Kill a Mockingbird, the father of Scout, the narrator, Atticus Finch, a gentle and mild southern attorney, shocks his children when, at the pleading of Heck Tate, the town’s sheriff, he takes up a rifle and from a great distance, shoots and kills a rabid dog. In the 1930s, “mad dogs”, crazed by rabies, were a serious threat.
“Rabies is a viral disease that causes inflammation of the brain in humans and other mammals. Early symptoms can include fever and tingling at the site of exposure. These symptoms are followed by one or more of the following symptoms: violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, fear of water, an inability to move parts of the body, confusion, and loss of consciousness. Once symptoms appear, the result is nearly always death.” — Wiki
The vast majority of the worldwide cases of human rabies, almost always contracted from bites and scratches of infected animals, are the results of dog bites. This used to be the case in the United States, but here, through laws and regulations requiring the vaccination of pet dogs against rabies, dog-to-human rabies infection has been virtually eliminated.
Animal rabies is still fairly common in the United States, with different areas having more frequent animal vectors of the disease:
[ click here for full sized image ]
It is difficult to see in the image above, and in the full-sized image as well, but the entire country, including Alaska and Puerto Rico (but not Hawaii) is marked for the presence of rabies in bats. The Eastern Coast marked for bats and raccoons, the great Midwest for bats and skunks with the same for parts of California, with Arizona and New Mexico bats and fox or fox-and-skunks. Puerto Rico has bats and mongoose.
The CDC issues this specific warning and recommendation:
“Staying away from wildlife, especially bats, is key to preventing rabies in people. Bats carry rabies virus in every U.S. state except Hawaii, and can spread the virus year-round. However, anecdotal case reports suggest that people may not be fully aware that bats pose a rabies risk – and so they may not seek life-saving rabies PEP if they are bitten or scratched by a bat. If people wake up with a bat in the room, CDC recommends that they assume they may have been exposed to rabies and see a healthcare provider right away to determine if they need to receive PEP [Postexposure prophylaxis] for rabies.”
When I was young, rabies shots were anecdotally believed to involve a long series of [reportedly] extremely painful shots in the stomach. A historical recounting states: “The treatment consisted of 25 injections of rabies vaccine: three on the first day, two on the second, two on the third, and one each day after for 18 days. Each dose was slightly stronger, or more virulent, than the preceding, so that the body could build up immunity.”
Today the treatment is easier and can be administered by your family doctor:
Rabies shots include:
- A fast-acting shot (rabies immune globulin) to prevent the virus from infecting you. Part of this injection is given near the area where the animal bit you if possible, as soon as possible after the bite.
- A series of rabies vaccines to help your body learn to identify and fight the rabies virus. Rabies vaccines are given as injections in your arm. You receive four injections over 14 days.
I have had the experience of having a bat in the house, flying about in its rather spooky silent fashion. A workable method of getting a bat out of the house is to hold a towel like a matador’s cape, down low, and then toss it up, still spread out, into the flight path of the bat. The bat will hit the towel without hurting itself and fall to the floor. Bats cannot take flight from the ground. If the bat is still tangled in the towel, one can carefully pick up whole package (if not, capture the grounded bat with the towel, carefully), take it outside near a tree or other vertical structure, and shake out the bat gently onto the ground. It will find its way to the tree, climb up high enough to get air-borne, and fly away. Washing up carefully after any contact with wild animals is a must. The CDC says “If people wake up with a bat in the room, CDC recommends that they assume they may have been exposed to rabies and see a healthcare provider right away”.
Bottom Line:
- Bats are your greatest risk of contracting rabies in the United States. Be aware of this threat.
- All animals, domestic or wild, that are acting strangely or out of character, should be avoided and never approached — especially known carriers of rabies: bats, dogs, cats, raccoons, foxes and skunks. If in doubt, call your local animal control officer or animal rescue.
- Don’t Panic! “The U.S. averages [only] 1 to 3 human cases of rabies a year now”. Even so, if you think you may have been exposed, do see your doctor immediately.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment Policy:
I love the outdoors, land or sea, and have spent a great deal of time just poking around in the wild — much to my gain. No animal deserves to be molested, harmed or killed solely because they might be inconvenient. Animals or insects that target humans and/or spread disease must be controlled, of course.
Bats are having a hard time in the United States. They have long been targeted and killed on sight by people with misconceptions and superstitions about them. In the present, many species are dying of white-nose syndrome. But while we love them, and put up bat houses for them, we must be aware of the threat of rabies that they represent.
I would love to hear your bat stories.
# # # # #
A point that should be emphasized is the importance of immediate treatment if you suspect infection. A friend was bitten by a bat in their house in northern Illinois. She was told that if the shots aren’t started very quickly it is too late and you will likely die. I think the time period is within a week, maybe shorter.
OldRetiredGuy ==> Good firsthand story on an important point.
If you even suspect you might have comein contact with a rabid animal or ANY BAT, seek IMMEDIATE medical attention.
‘Bats cannot take flight from the ground’ are we sure about that? I can think of several species which land on the ground – not least the vampire bat.
Even some fruit bats can take off from the ground:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/how-bats-take-flight-revealed-by-x-ray/277582/
John ==> a lot of controversy on the whole topic — I’d like to see an actual video of a bat raking off from the ground — the Flash video was “unknown content” for me. I’d be grateful if you can find an actual video of such a feat.
Here is flight information on the two very different animals under discussion.
The biggest pterosaurs, the azhdarchids, were giraffe-sized:
http://dehavelle.com/wp-content/images/azhdarchids.jpg
Video of their proposed ground takeoff is included:
https://theconversation.com/pterosaurs-should-have-been-too-big-to-fly-so-how-did-they-manage-it-60892
I have seen other animations of these astounding creatures that show them simply standing up (using their long folded wings as crutches), beginning to flap as they start walking forward on their short back legs, and sort of flap-gliding away into the sky.
?w=461&h=282&zoom=2
This takeoff is a slow and majestic process, and does not at all resemble the frantic jump and grab for air of the vampire bat. Yes, they weighed hundreds of kilograms — but they also had ten-meter-plus wingspans and lots of surface area.
By comparison, the vampire bat takeoff is trivial and requires no speculation. Note how slow the human hand is in this slowed-down launch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIl_bYFMr8o
A second video doesn’t have much takeoff action, but it shows fascinating details I’d not seen elsewhere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RostZvdoLM
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Keith DeHavelle ==> I never knew that there was a controversy about flying “dinosaurs’.
There does seem to be a lot of interest here among the readers. I am repeatedly surprised by the broad range of interests of WUWT readers — and often caught out by some esoteric point that catches fire in comments.
Thanks for reading here.
griff ==> See the Wiki quote far above — as with all things, there may be exceptions, but I don’t know of any confirmed cases. The most commonly mentioned suspect for the ability to launch into flight from the ground is the common vampire — and while it walks readily on the ground, I can not find any reference that states it can shift into flight without a little bit of altitude.
If you can find a confirmation, post it here for us.
It may be true that most microbats spend little time on the ground and would have difficulty achieving takeoff from the ground, but those bats that regularly forage on the ground seem to have no problem. The New Zealand Short-tailed Bat is an example – it spends about 30% of its time foraging on the ground and has no problem bursting into flight as shown near the end of this video:
DaveW ==> Yes, the literature lists the short-tailed as one of the few bats that is supposed tyo be able to achieve flight from the ground.
I was raised in my grandparents’ foster home which included a huge bat rookery in the massive attic. We had to catch one about every three years to have it tested. Grandma got really good at brooming one into a dazed condition, jar it up, and take it to the health nurse in charge of foster homes for testing.
Many years later when I was running the ranch and living in that same huge house, I woke up early one morning to a flutter feeling next to my ear. When I raised my head off the pillow, a rather young bat had apparently spent the night cozy and warm next to my ear.
That was before I arranged to have the roof redone which included removing the bats, feet thick piles of bat poop, and reroofing from the rafters up, all 3600 square feet of it. After suiting up in haz-mat stuff, I chipped and shoveled the poop out, broomed away any bats still clinging to the rafters, and then covered all louvered vents with two layers of wire mesh stapled down every inch or less.
I kinda felt bad about removing such a massive bat (1000+) rookery but there are plenty of old houses and barns still in the county for them to raise their babies. That said, it still is rather creepy to be able to lay claim that I have slept with a bat.
Plus 100+, Pamela!
You can always hand a few bat rookeries in the trees.
What did the poor bats do before there were humans to provide belfries and mine tunnels? I have often had the thought that by encouraging rookeries in abandoned mines, we might be contributing inadvertently to White Nose Syndrome. If they were forced to be more dispersed, there would be less opportunity to infect others with the fungus.
A subtlety to this question: The New World population of vampire bats was low —until the arrival of Columbus. The vampire count exploded with the new food source: European cattle and horses.
Now, millions of cattle are “tapped” every year by these bats, and thousands are killed by their rabies.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Pamela
Well, at least you didn’t contribute to the legend of vampires.
Pamela ==> Brave Admission — having slept with a bat.Thanks for the story — my grist mill had bats, but only hundreds….small ones.
Your June 22 article titled, “Mad Dogs and Americans,” is better than most recent responses to our CDC’s press release, but it raises serious questions about their reliability. Why focus focus so much attention on one of our rarest mortality threats? On average, just 1.5 Americans per year contract rabies from a bat. By contrast, dog attacks have already killed 20 Americans this year, and easily preventable obesity will kill thousands more. Unfortunately, it’s far easier to point a finger at defenseless bats than at dog owners or fast food manufacturers. Finally, rabies treatment in America is outrageously profitable, and no one is more influential than drug company lobbyists. Since bats almost never bite except in self-defense if handled, those who simply leave them alone have nearly zero odds of contracting any disease from a bat. Where I live in Austin, Texas, we protect 1.5 million bats that roost beneath a mid-city bridge. Though millions of people come to closely observe their spectacular emergences, not one has ever been attacked or contracted a disease from our bats. The bats have made safe and invaluable neighbors, consuming tons of insect pests nightly and attracting 10 million tourist dollars each summer. For a well-documented explanation of why our government focuses so disproportionately on rabies in bats, check out my resource, “Rabies in Perspective.”
Merlin Tuttle ==> The CDC’s point is that people seldom think of bats and rabies in the same sentence.
Geographically, bats are the most common threat — and the least expected.
We have nearly totally eliminated dog-human transmission of rabies in the United States and the few cases we have are almost all caused by bats.
The CDC does not make a big thing out of it — it just releases a notification to the public for their education. Any contact with a wild bat should prompt a visit to a health care professional for evaluation. If one contracts rabies and does not get treatment rapidly, it is almost invariably fatal (and miserably so).
Only the superstitious think that bats attack people. No one advocates mass killings of bats.
The CDC is quite clear in its warning.
Bats are relatively thick in central Texas. They show up from time to time in AT&T Center during Spurs basketball games. In 2009, one of their players, Manu Ginobli, swatted one that was flitting around during a game, picked it up and walked it off the court. Had to get rabies shots afterwards. Quick, quick reflexes and hand – eye coordination. He played basketball the same way. Cheers –
https://youtu.be/iloN1RPs4n0
agimarc ==> Great story — and amazingly quick hands to swat a bat out of the air!
Readers:
NOTE WELL: Having swatted the bat, he had to get rabies shots!
Light flexible towels may work for catching virtually anything that flies.
Handling is a different matter entirely.
Sharp teeth or animals that have serious bite strength can be caught by towels or sheets, but handling should be by heavier items.
I like heavy winter coats for larger animals like hawks, possums and raccoons. Leather gloves usually work for bats.
We catch virtually every critter we find in our house and toss them outside with a slight exception for cockroaches and destructive mice. This past month we’ve seen quite a few wolf spiders. I am especially persistent in catching the mothers carrying clutches of small spiders. I prefer they disperse outside rather than inside. Even the copperheads that like to camp near our front door are caught and released elsewhere.
Bats and spiders are worth many times their weight in controlling insects. Snakes are great for controlling rodents and toads
I’ve watched bats and seagulls perform amazing aerial flying in avoiding items; including badminton rackets and nets. The person using them must be quick.
ATheoK ==> Thanks for your story. Catch and release is a fine approach for human-animal conflict (as long as it is the humans doing the catching).
I was once a very active spelunker, and occasionally when in a new cave one ran across a bat, or two, or a few thousands. Usually you just keep as quiet as possible and avoid lights on them and all is well. If you identify an endangered species you either give it a very wide birth or if its in the way, you turn back in order to not disturb it further. Such caves are then recorded and only explored when bats are not roosting.
There was one incident in a large cave with a fairly narrow tunnel-like passge that eventually led to a cavern (we were going to turn into another passage before reaching the cavern)…it was late in the day (you don’t really care in a cave) so I guess the bats were awake and preparing for flight when they heard us- we never saw the colony, just the wall of bats coming down the tunnel. I remember saying something like “I think we need to turn back…” and when I turned, I was already alone – the partner had duck-run down the passage faster than one could believe to a side exit several hundred feet away. I remember standing there a moment watching and feeling the wings of bats all across me – I was afraid to walk for fear of making things worse. I finally hunched down and just waited quietly patiently. Although I could feel their passage, not a single one landed on me.
The reason people are told to avoid bats is because the only ones they are likely to see may be sick ones. They are not naturally aggressive, are delicate, and if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. They are also kind of cute little animals when randomly seen in the wild, but you must be careful not to disturb them if at all possible. They are not meant to be touched, you should not wake them if sleeping (no lights, no flashes, no noise), and if pups are present just go away.
Robert of Texas ==> Thanks for the caving/bat story and the good advice.
Remember: The CDC says ANY contact with a bat is reason to seek immediate medical attention. — just in case.
The video of the gull, who had figured out the door and the crisps, is comical.
But instructive.
If a gull can understand how a recurring mechanism works, then liberals can understand how the climate really works.
Or, are they just too gullible to big promotions?
Bob Hoye ==> The birds are motivated to learn — maybe not so the liberal/progressives.
My favorite bat story. Courtesy Barney Fife.
https://youtu.be/lrb3zoeKiGM
Doug ==> One of the greatest — Don Knotts as Barney Fife.
In Ontario Canada, the bat is designated an “endangered” species, hence there are regulations as to how to manage bats living close to people. I have learned there are small brown bats and large brown bats as well as several other varieties of bats native to North America. Only the brown bats live in “bat houses” people put up to attract bats. Bats eat a prodigious number of mosquitoes which is good if one has a cottage in the woods.
My encounter with bats living in and around our 45th parallel lakeside isolated cottage has been in summer for 60 years although over the last decade, they have been few and far between. We had hinged shutters on the windows we used to close up the cottage for the winter. In the Spring, after putting in the water line into the Lake, I would open the shutters, latching them to the siding for the summer. Quickly, I would say less than a week, the bats would return to the back side of the shutters which were facing South, bats congregated, enjoying the daytime snooze in the warmth. As evening fell, as a group, they exited in a commotion only to return with first morning light, again, noisily.
Bats are small creatures, they only need 1/4 inch crack to get into a warm space and set up camp. They did so in the cottage rafters. One evening, bats exited into the cottage from a space between the ceiling and fireplace. There was a commotion of our own. 15 to 20 bats were all flying around in a swarm clockwise. Around and around they would go. I opened the front door but they could not “see” the opening. So, I got a broom, crouching low and got the swarm to fly counter-clockwise where they were able to “see” the opening and all left on mass. The “Bat Man” came the next day, caulked the entire outside of the cottage for every little crack and cranny and installed a chimney, ie a one-way valve for the bats who could exit but couldn’t climb back up and into the rafters.
Subsequently, we installed new windows so that there was no need for shutters, and now we only “see” bats flying at night on rare occasions.
As for rabies? there were probably a few hundred people exposed to bats over the lifetime of the cottage, including the dozen or so that one evening of the circular swarm and nobody I know of has died of rabies. I will, however be more careful the next time I check my bat box.
RiHo08 ==> You might check with your local health authorities who ought to be able to inform you of the rabies status with bats in your area.
Great bat cabin story and the Bat Man too!
So, if you have bats in your belfry, and you are a warmista, do you allow them to remain there, or do you chase them out, only to have them die due to “climate change”?
This is not an idle question – it is a proven fact that most climatistas do indeed have bats in their belfries.
Not Chicken Little and Siamiam ==> Great minds think alike….
It may be easy to get rid of bats in the house, but what about bats in the belfry?
“White Nose Disease” has taken its toll on our local bat population the past 8 years or so, and we are now ‘enjoying’ an explosion of mosquitoes throughout the warmer months… the little blood suckers have always been bad in the UP, but they are noticeably worse now. I’ll take my (remote) chances of encountering a rabid bat (quite rare) versus a summer-long battle against all the disease-carrying swarms of mosquitoes that are so bad they chase us indoors some evenings.
JMichna ==> White Nose is an ecological disaster — and we can only hope that some of the survivors are immune to it and will raise up a new generation of resistant bats.
I’d rather have bats than mosquitoes any day (or night!) I am highly allergic to something mosquitoes inject when they bite and suffer for weeks from each little bite!
That said, I survived a decade in the Caribbean without contracting any mosquito-borne disease.
Are you sure Atticus was the narrator—thought it was Scout
john mcguire ==> Love readers with a good literary background. You are right, I mis-wrote “narrator” when I meant to write “father of the narrator”.
Scout was indeed the [narrator] of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Needs an edit (unless you are a fair bit younger than I am, Kip). Nothing “anecdotal” about it. My dad was a veterinarian, and my mother was his assistant when he was still establishing his practice when I was young. They were both bitten by animals that were not provably vaccinated (Dad twice, Mom once, to my knowledge – there may have been more times before I was born, when they were still in Kansas).
Intramuscular shots in the abdomen. Extremely painful, as any intramuscular injection is, and rather large injections, which only made them more painful.
Writing Observer ==> Yes, thank you for the confirmation (one never knows how accurate those stories we heard when young actually are.) Another reader recounted his own personal experience with the old shots in the stomach rabies treatment somewhere above.
We are blessed by this advance in modern medicine.
I grew up in Alaska. As kids we’d stay out practically till dawn in the perpetual twilight of summer. As a young adult I commuted 200+ miles (both ways) for 6 years to work swing shift. Lived and worked from the north slope to the southern tip over more years. Plenty of time up in the evening and night. Plenty of time outdoors. Never saw a single bat, never heard anyone say anything at all about bats.
Except once. As a young teen (in the late 80s) a neighbor wanted to hire me and a friend to clear out his old barn that hadn’t been used for years. The stall parts were fine, but when we went into the tack room there were dead bats everywhere. That’s how I became aware that there were, in fact, bats in Alaska. They were the size of small mice. Dozens, laying everywhere. Didn’t look decomposed or anything, but the room was pretty dark and they might have been desiccated. We looked close but didn’t touch them. We declined the job (in large part because the tack room was too full of big stuff for us to want to deal with) and left.
I very much doubt the mass-death was related to rabies. The owner seemed quite surprised, so I doubt it was poison related either. Anyway, never again saw or heard of bats in Alaska. Kind of odd, really.
Banatu ==> I suppose the far far north of Alaska may be too cold in the winter where deep caves are not available for the bats to overwinter.
Your tack room bats could have been taken out bhy a real cold snap the previous winter…but that is only speculation. Many bats are quite small — as you say, mouse sized or even smaller.
In Australia the have the fantastically huge flying foxes, witrh wing-spans up to 4 feet (1.2 meters). Hard to believe until you actually see them with your own eyes….hanging in the trees in Sydney’s Botanical Gardens.
I have no bat story, but in September of 2016 I received a long, deep scratch on my left forearm from a raccoon (which I was trying to free from having his head stuck in our squirrel feeder). Five days later, I started developing flu-like symptoms. It occurred to me that I might have been exposed to rabies. Long story short, I got the series of shots (almost too late). They are very benign. The vaccine shots are given in the shoulder, one per week for four weeks. The immunoglobulin (antibody) shots are all given up front. I had five, which were only somewhat uncomfortable. The shots do mess up your mind, for months. There are support groups for people who have had them (I found this out long after the fact).
The surprising thing to me was the cost: $17,000.00. That is largely driven by the immunoglobulin, which is derived from human blood taken from people who have had the rabies vaccine (and are thus immune). Should that deter you? Rabies kills about 50,000 people a year world-wide. In the whole history of medical science, there are only 9 cases of people having survived the disease. So it isn’t “usually” fatal. As the PA who saw me at the emergency room put it: “You have to have the rabies series, because if you get rabies, you die.”
Don’t mess around with it.
Michael S. Kelly, LS BSA, Ret ==> Thank you for sharing your personal experience — and I am glad you realized the danger, got treatment, and survived.
As you point out, thousands around the world don’t survive and die horrible deaths.
Readers: Heed Michael’s word to the wise:
Don’t mess around with it.
Wind turbines appear to be reducing the bat population by the multiple 100,00s every year, never mind the number Bald Eagles and Golden Eagles killed every year by wind turbines.
John == Yes, so sad, wind turbine blades appear to be moving slow;ly from ur w=viewpoint on the ground — but maths will let you discover the tip speed of those whirling knives.
By the way –
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&biw=360&bih=524&ei=_VYQXYWGKZCdkgW8pZGYBA&q=female+pigeon+kills+pigeon&oq=female+pigeon+kills+pigeon&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
most peculiar – obviously Kip Hansen doesn’t know how to find out “where do people scuba in Arizona” since
Kip Hansen asks
Kip Hansen ==> “a Dive Store in Arizona” where do people scuba in Arizona? Just curious…. (We do have dive stores in upstate New York, and they often dive in lakes in Pennsylvania)
kindly I response
Dive Store in Arizona Where do people scuba in Arizona (We do have dive stores in upstate New York, and they often dive in lakes in Pennsylvania)
https://www.google.com/search?q=Dive+Store+in+Arizona+Where+do+people+scuba+in+Arizona+(We+do+have+dive+stores+in+upstate+New+York%2C+and+they+often+dive+in+lakes+in+Pennsylvania)&oq=Dive+Store+in+Arizona+Where+do+people+scuba+in+Arizona+(We+do+have+dive+stores+in+upstate+New+York%2C+and+they+often+dive+in+lakes+in+Pennsylvania)&aqs=chrome.
/ fastest QA way /
Warum fragst Du wenn Du die Antwort nicht vertraegst.
Never mind – kannst ja unbeachtet lassen, 1fach nicht abdrucken:
Why do you ask if you can’t cope with the answer.
Never mind – just ignore it, don’t print.
Johann ==> I’m sorry you are offended — I was having a conversation with another reader. I wasn’t looking for — nor did I want — a Googlized answer.
In my experience, Most Google answers are incorrect at many levels and need to be carefully screened before they lead to useful information.
To print or not to print, that’s Kip Hansen’s question.
My bat story is from Nigeria in the 1960s. An English doctor of many talents outside of medicine was an avid climber and I mentioned I had climbed in Switzerland and although I wasn’t greatly experienced, I was fairly strong and reasonably athletic. He said he had been looking for a companion to climb Wase Rock, a volcanic neck (volcano throat fills with lava that hardens and eventually the rest of the volcano is eroded away leaving the “neck”).
We set off one early morning to climb it and about maybe half way up, the doctor was bitten by a bat as he reached into a crack that he was wedging an expansion device into to attach a karabiner (spring clipped ring for passing ropes through). He killed the bat to take back to have tested for rabies, but when we got back he decided as a precaution to begin the course of vaccine injections in the abdomen.
Meanwhile, he gave me instructions and the instruments for performing a tracheotomy if he reacted allergically to the vaccine. We braced ourselves with good scotch whisky and fortunately didn’t have to deal with the problem! The next morning we learned that the test was negative.
Gary Pearse ==> Great story — exotic location, dangerous actions, threat of horrible death…manly companionship in the face of danger. Terrific.
In the 70’s we lived in a remote cabin here in BC. One night late my wife awoke with a bat cruising through our open upstairs. She has radar too. It flew from one end of the house to the other, back and forth. The kids all got up to watch the chaos as the tiny “Little Brown Bat” landed in the peak of our roof. My 22 came out and one shot ment we could all go back to bed.
The next morning my littlest one pointed down to the floor and exclaimed “Look Papa, Mickey Mouse ears!” Sure enough, the bullet had nicked off the top of the little guys head, complete with ears!
Murphy Slaw ==> Ah, the sad fate of many a bat encroaching on human spaces…..thanks for sharing.
We lived in a house in TX years ago and had 2 cats. I heard some thumping around and strange squeaking in the middle of the night, and they were chasing a bat around. It was lying on the floor when I got to it and I picked it up with a towel and looked it over. It lay there quietly and appeared uninjured – cute little thing. I carried it outside carefully in the towel and put it down somewhere. In the morning it was gone. I hope it was okay!
JS ==> If your cats were confined to the indoors (as they should be), the bat probably did its funny little crawling walking on its elbows things, climbed a couple of feet up something like a bush or tree, and flew off.
Thanks for your gentle care —
Now days, remember the CDC’s warning about rabies.
Epilogue:
Thanks to all who shared their stories about bats and rabies — some funny, some serious, all informative.
This was meant to be a “filler” piece, an online “newsgbyte”, but seems to have attracted a lot of attention. I sincerely hope that it encourages readers to seek a medical opinion after any close contact with wild bats.
Several readers are interested in the question of how the large flying “dinosaurs” managed to get off the ground — and there was quite a discussioin about it. I know that there was a lot of interest in the topic of how these ancient creatures moved and acted — ref: Jurassic Park. Always surprises me, what folks will want to talk about in the comments section — like a good gathering of interesting people at a party — lots of interesting conversations develop.
Thanks for reading.
# # # # #
Kip, thanks for answering.
Of course we know the problems with Internet search results, e.g. Wikipedia:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Wikipedia+climate+deniers&oq=Wikipedia+climate+deniers&aqs=chrome.
That’s why I prefer to present a LIST of research results, avoiding special agents like “Wikipedia”.
When the facts are known / presented everyone is able to find, build “his / her” own “opinion.
Anyway – wuwt is always a valuable, inspiring read.
Regards