This weekend while working in the backyard I found a dead bat in my lawn (next to a fence). Is this common for bats to die while out looking for food. Or do I need to start checking in my attic to see if I've got a colony or something. I'm wondering if they are like baby birds falling out of the nest, but this one looked full grown. Anyone else ever found a bat in their yard??
Throw it away and forget about it. Don't waste your time worrying about it. It's highly unlikely you have bats in your belfry. Bats have to die somewhere.
If there's a chance a pet came in contact with it you may want to get it tested for rabies. Austin Animal Control will pick it up and test it for free. Just make sure you have your current rabies certificate and pet registration handy before they show up.
Over at the Congress Bat Bridge, there are always volunteers from a bat organization handing out flyers that advise not to handle any bat found on the ground. Any mammal can get rabies, and although rare, you should not handle the animal by hand. Dispose of it, by using gloves or plastic bags or something, or make bat chili. Generally, bats are beneficial, because they eat lots of insects like mosquitos, so you should put up some bat houses to encourage more to live on your property.
It's pretty uncommon for a dead bat to bite someone. It's even more uncommon to get rabies from a dead bat that doesn't bite someone. I personally would prefer to pick up a dead critter with a paper towel or whatever, but I think a dead bat, even a rabid one, poses about as much of a risk of rabies as your risk of winning the lottery twice in the same week. Some one wins the lottery every week or so. I NEVER hear of anyone getting rabies from a bat. Bats get a bad rap. They are really good friends. Look up how many mosquitos they can eat in a night. Any dead critter can be unpleasant to deal with, but bats are not any special rabies risk except in a nightmare. Nobody would worry about getting rabies from a dead cat or a dead dog, but I'm willing to bet that, when alive, they are a much more serious risk. They're just little flying mammals. Rats, on the other hand, have caused some serious damage.
Actually a kid in Houston died a few months back after catching rabies from a bat that bit him while he was asleep.
The death rate averages less than one death per year. It's not a significant risk. Not enough to be genuinely worried about. I have not done the research, but I know bats eat a shitload of mosquitos (something like a ton of mosquitos just from the bats in Bracken every night) and I'll venture a guess that mosquitos cause more deaths each year than bats. So do bees.
Well I know if a bat fell dead into my backyard my dog would probably start chewing on it. I'm assuming it's possible for a dog or cat to get rabies in this manner, so it would probably be worth having the bat tested. Unless you don't have pets, I dunno if that was ever specified.
last summer we had a bat in our pool basket. the stupid pool guy threw it near a bush, rather than in the garbage. we have dogs that run around in the back and when we discovered the bat, our dog was just feet away from it laying down. we could play with our dogs or let them roam the backyard for 3 months. we had to keep her caged up and our indoor dog had to be left in the utility room.
There was a poster with bad health who used to be around that was crazy about reptiles. Snoop something? Nice guy. Tried to dispel irrational fears of healthy snakes. I'm not crazy about bats like he seemed to be about snakes and such, but the notion that 20% of all bats have rabies really needs some perspective. Rabies is not a very common problem. It is not a rampant problem in the bat population. There are millions of bats in central Texas. There isn't a big problem with rabid bats. Like I said, the average is one death a year according to the very scant research I did. That is from a live bat that has rabies and bites someone. I triple bat dare someone to find an instance of a dead rabid bat that either bit someone or that was eaten by a dog (or other pet) that then became rabid and caused a problem. It's just not really a big danger. Bats just aren't a big risk to us. Throw it away and move on. Just like I am going to do.
I think the concern about rabies is valid. Rabies isn't like pneumonia, where you start exhibiting symtoms, eventually feel like crap, head to the emergency room, get blasted with antibiotics, and survive (unless you're 80 years old). Once you show symptoms of rabies, your goose is cooked. This article shows that 11% of bats tested in Texas between 1996 and 2000 were rabid: CDC article on Texas bats So, it's not completely ridiculous to assume the bat in jerich9701's yard died of rabies. Does it make sense to handle such a bat with no concern for their own health? Really?
OK. I stand corrected. 20% of dead bats died from rabies. Contrary to my perception, it's a real bad problem. Lots of unvaccinated dogs are eating dead rabid bats and the dogs or cats are then biting young children before they are shot like Old Yeller before little Timmy succumbs to rabies along with Gramps.
Clearly, all these dead bats are actually vampires who have been killed by vampire hunters. This whole rabies thing is just a ruse to throw us off their scent, thereby maintaining their anonymity. It is a little know fact that when you kill a vampire, it assumes its bat form.
Let me add that this is a good reason to keep your animals' rabies vaccination certificate current and in a place you can put your hands on it if necessary. Had I not been able to produce the certificate on the spot (rabies tag was insufficient since it only gives the date of the vaccination, not whether it was a 1 or 3 year vaccine) Animal Control was ready to take my dog into quarantine while they awaited the test results. As it was, we were instructed to keep the dog isolated until we got the results a few days later. Animal Control was concerned about contact with the dead bat as well as the possibility that the bat bit the dog before it died. Believe me, they take this very seriously. Had the bat tested positive the dog would have been quarantined for several weeks even though his vaccine was current. Maybe they're overly cautious, but considering the potential consequences better safe than sorry.
Mind you, that's actually 11% of bats sent to the Dept of Health for testing, so it's a specific selection of specimens that somebody thought was suspicious to begin with. I doubt there's any danger in handling the thing. Either chuck it in the dumpster or have the Dept of Health come and take it. Live bats are a completely different matter. The species that live under the Congress St. bridge had been studied in New Mexico and found to have a rabies prevalence of around 1%, mostly among younger animals. A larger percentage have latent immune defenses against rabies, so it's speculated that those that get exposed to the virus do so at a young age then often recover uneventfully (at which point they are also NOT carriers). And as to their beneficial effects: Texas has thirty-two bat species, more than any other state. Bats rank among the state's most beneficial and fascinating allies. The majority eat insects, with just one colony consuming billions in a single night. The Link That's a lot of mosquitoes, man.
I'm not saying it is common, but using caution wouldn't hurt. And I wouldn't want a dog to get hold of it and eat it. And you are not actually supposed to put dead animals in a dumpster, the correct procedure is to call the city dead animal pickup number. A bat-probably wouldn't be a major problem in a dumpster, though.
Thanks for all the great advice. Actually we do have two dogs and I wouldn't have been suprised if the bat had been chewed on, but it was in pristine condition (as well as a dead bat can look). Being a dumass I just chunked it over the fence, not into a neighbor's backyard, but to the side of the country road behind our house. My one lab has been throwing up all week, so we're going to take him to the vet. His vacinations are all up to date, but you guys are making me wonder. Anyway thanks again.
This is an interesting thread. My wife and I live ~1/2 mile from Bracken Bat Cave. We can see the bat flight from our porch every night during the warmer times of year. There was a great flight last night, in fact. Sometimes on their return flight they fly right over the house. It's not uncommon to find dead bats around the house or work, especially during the summer. With 20-30 million bats, quite a few are bound to die every day of natural causes. The Bracken bats (Mexican free tailed, same as the Congress bridge bats) will eat mosquitoes, but they primarily feed on moths, sometimes as high as 10,000 feet. One of the guys with BCI there at Bracken said that they will actually work together to "herd" migrating moths together and then the bats will tear into them. Sounded a whole lot like what dolphins do to bait balls at sea. If you ever get the chance to see the Bracken flight, take it. I've seen it probably a dozen or more times, and its always amazing. We've had quite a few bats in the cave here recently, but they haven't stayed around. Migrating, in all likelihood. Oh yeah. Nick's right. Less than one death per year attributed to bats. Less than are attributed to dogs, by far. Hell, flowers kill more people. Should you be cautious with a dead bat? Sure, same as with any dead animal. I just wouldn't obsess about it.
