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Bats can do more than shape-shift and turn you into a vampire — they can also give you rabies! And Prince George's County health officials are now warning residents that they've recorded an increase in rabid bat activity in the area, the Post reports. Nine PG County bats have tested positive for rabies since the beginning of August, and at least one person has come into contact with one and been subsequently preemptively treated for rabies. County officials are urging residents to bat proof their homes by repairing any holes, using window screens and closing doors tightly.
I can't say I've ever seen a single bat flying around in my part of the District, but surely there are some. What parts of the area have you seen bats in, readers?
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Given DC's mosquito problem, I'd welcome a few MORE bats, rabid or not. -1 to PG county.
I agree. Bats are fantastic for controlling mosquitos.
Asian Tiger mosquitoes (the same as cause so much discomfort here) spread yellow fever, among other diseases such as dengue, and caused the French to abandon the Panama Canal to the Americans.
Yellow fever was considered defeated in Panama when deaths fell to .3/1000 people in 1913. This using toxins and tactics that the EPA would abhor. And .3 deaths per 1000 people would equal 180,000 deaths in the 6,000,000 population that is the DC area today.
1 or 2 prophylactic innoculations per year for rabies seems a pretty fair trade to me.
Screw PG. Build a bathouse.
http://www.eparks.org/wildlife_protection/wildlife_facts/bats/bat_house.asp
Not true. Yellow fever in Panama was spread by Aedes aegypti. The Asian Tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) was not discovered in Panama until 2002.
Both are carriers of yellow fever and dengue, both of which are hemmoragic fevers.
But you're right, same genus, different species, same effect, though.
And this is all apart from our native mosquitoes, which historically made DC a malarial nightmare.
Ever since DDT was rightly banned, we especially need all the mosquito control tools we can get.
I'm from Austin where bats are nearly sacred. They were going to exterminate them years ago and then a UT biologist convinced them not to. Bats eat they're bodyweight in insects every day or something - so now Austin has few mosquitos - and a nice tourist attraction (people gather every evening to watch the bats fly out from under the Congress street bridge)
teh bats r everywherez!!!!1
I had a bat in my house last night, those suckers are sneaky. But just open a door and they find their way out rather quickly. Note: bats always fly counter clockwise in a room, so once you have beat on them they have a very predicable flight pattern.
Unless you're in Australia, where they fly clockwise around the room.
I remember that show!
"Batty, batty, batty! Wings don't fail me now!"
Where the hell is Bruce Wayne when we need him? He needs to call off his annoying minions.
How curious that you referred to him as Bruce Wayne. I've always wondered which was the mask and which was the real identity hidden underneath.. or did I just totally blow your mind?!
Dammit, my nose is bleeding!
If you want to see some bats, then you gotta' go to the National Zoo after sunset! They're flying around everywhere! And no, they aren't zoo bats. But still ... don't feed the bats!
Get back in the Batmobile, Liz.
sommer: i've seen bats flying around the area at the skate park, so they're definitely in shaw.
i also saw one this last weekend on my block in trinidad. i'll bet they're in more of the city than you'd think.
You see them all the time early evenings in the District; if you don't look closely you think it's just a wad of like starlings or sparrows. Look closer and they seem to have no head - thos're bats.
I've seen 'em fly down K St. NW toward 13th at dusk and hang out in the trees with those weird little spotted birds that seem a little too jumpy for my taste.
Brookland has tons of them... and I'm with Downtown Rez that we should not panic about the rabies. Bats do a tremendous number of natural services and it'd be a shame if we caused their numbers to plummet over a very small risk.
Anyone who's ever had to deal with doubleparking churchies on Sunday would tell you that P.G. County has always had a rabid bat problem. The worst ones drive white Nissan Apocalypses with vanity plates that say, "G-ZUS4ME."
I was in the White Oak Sears store in Silver Spring a couple weeks ago and a bat came flying through the store. A staff member and I looked at each each other, he said "damn, that was a real bat" and we both got out of there as quickly as we could. The store had a bunch of people but no one else seemed to notice...