On Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:55:32 GMT, "Lilah Morgan"
wrote:

"Jack Schmidling" wrote in message
...

Some people have all the luck. I have been studying bats for years,
made several documentaries, had rabies shots so I could work with them
and just plain dig bats.

How much of an occurence is it for bats to carry rabies anyways? Joxer's
been an inside cat since before his last rabies vaccination expired, and as
far as I knew, no exposure to any critter that was a possible carrier(there
are no mice/rats here, not he even tries to be a hunter anymore), since it
requres him getting off his nice comfy spot on the couch. But now with all
these bats, I don't want to take any chances. He will get his vaccination
current.


Here in Austin, TX we have two of the largest urban bat colonies
living under bridges. One bridge houses almost 2 million, and the one
up the road from me houses about a million. There hasn't been one
case of rabies in the whole fourteen years I've lived in TX. It is
extremely rare. Bats with rabies are rare, but even if they do have
rabies they just fall and die. It's people who insist on handling a
bat on the ground who are prone to rabies. Again, I believe there
have been 13 documented cases in a very many years, all due to
handling bats on the ground.