OT- Bat in my room!

[sfsvx]

Originally posted by SHISVX
hey mike...i would think about getting a series of rabies shots. a bat can bite you and you not know it, especially if it was in your house over night. it is a five series shot, and as shots do, they hurt. but if the bat bit you and it had rabies, you are dead without the series. you can get them at any ER. not trying to scare ya, but if you saw go in, and out...then i wouldn't worry, just be careful next time or call animal control, they know how to handle it

Kelli

From the Bat Conservation International website, http://www.batcon.org/:

"In our collective experience, bats seldom are aggressive, even when sick, and humans typically feel and recognize any bites they receive. The undetected bite hypothesis is derived from the inability of medical professionals to interview patients due to late moribund or postmortem diagnoses . . . The undetected bite hypothesis is not supported by evidence, and it should not drive public policy or public health responses.

"Bat rabies accounts for approximately one human death per year in the United States. Thus, some people consider bats to be dangerous. Nevertheless, dogs which are often considered "man's best friend," attack and kill more humans annually than die from bat rabies in a decade. Statistically speaking, pets, playground equipment, and sports are far more dangerous than bats."

The world's largest colony of Mexican freetail bats lives under the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin, TX, and every night at dusk literally millions of bats fly out for their nightly hunting. The sight and sound is amazing - a river of bats coming from underneath the bridge, heading into the evening sky. Large numbers of people go down every night to watch the spectacle until the bats migrate south for the winter.

Bats are sadly misunderstood.