Holy infestation! Georgia town goes bat crazy (AP/CNN) {growing infestations}

[eppur_se_muova]

AMERICUS, Georgia (AP) --
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{Historic District homes} were not meant to shelter free-tailed bats which normally dwell in caves in Texas and farther west. But over the past three decades, the creatures have flown into the Southeast.
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Residents are not allowed to kill the bats because they are protected under Georgia law. Killing even one carries up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
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"In one house alone, I estimated 10,000 in the attic," said Perkins, 56.

Once, he found a layer of bat feces eight inches deep.
***
Because bats have tiny teeth, people may not even realize they have been bitten. Humans also can get rabies from a bat scratch or bat saliva. The disease can be fatal without anti-rabies shots. In humans, that means six shots over 30 days.
***
more: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/02/bat.crazy.ap/index.html

Holy crap! Read the article, it's pretty disgusting. Rats with wings. I visited one of the abandoned railroad tunnels in TX where the bats congregate -- it smelled FOUL from a long way off, and I wasn't going to get any closer. I'm curious about the need for a law protecting bats so stringently.

[KittyWampus]

1. Bats are highly beneficial. Please don't call them rats with wings, that epithet

goes to seagulls.

[wryter2000]

2. Or pigeons (rock doves, actually)

Bats are wonderful creatures, but those folks have a real problem. Rabies is 100% fatal without the shots.

[Old and In the Way]

9. Hehehe...your right. Reminds me of a funny story.

I once went lobstering with my Dad's friend. As we were clearing the breakwater jetty, I saw a bunch of the biggest river rats ever....they were 3x the size of any rat I've ever seen. When I mentioned that, he said- "Bob, there are 3 kinds of rats in this world. You got the land rats. You got the air rats, we also call 'em seagulls. And then you got the water rats...we call 'em lobsters."

That was the worst day I ever spent on a boat, it was hot, no breeze, and the stench of the bait was unbelievable. Anyone who has been lobstering knows just how bad the smell is. Rotting fish attracts the lobsters.

[Swamp Rat]

30. Just leave us rats out of it all together!

[seabeyond]

3. they dont belong in homes. a person should have the RIGHT to

not live with critters. law from killing roaches? mosquitoes? they have their place too. screw that. i would be out of that town

[KittyWampus]

5. towns need to start a Bat House program. You don't want to loose a bat population

the residents should work on gettingn bat houses made and posted around.

[seabeyond]

8. i could go with that,but not living with them. not at all n/t

[htuttle]

4. I’ve had it with these motherfucking bats in my motherfucking attic!

:crazy:

[karlrschneider]

7. Move 'em into the belfry!!!111!!1!

I'm SERIES

:evilgrin:

[davidinalameda]

29. you have bats in your belfrey?

oh my

[Ian David]

6. Gawd sent the bats to punish them for voting Republican. n/t

[karlrschneider]

10. Oh for chrissakes, such hysteria...

bats are wonderful creatures. Yeah they crap a lot and guano isn't exactly chocolate pie but it's a simple matter to put up bat houses. They keep the mosquitos under control.

[kestrel91316]

12. They keep America fed. They are HUGE predators of the

corn earworm moth. That alone makes bats worth their weight in gold.

Yeah, there IS that rabies thing. Very bad to find a bat in your home in the morning - have to assume everybody's been bitten and they have to get rabies treatment (which is no longer horrible and is basically 100% effective).

[karlrschneider]

16. That's true, the old multiple shots in the stomach isn't needed any more.

I guess many people just assume all bats carry the rabies virus which of course is silly. If a bat is found in the house (I actually did once many years ago) the obvious thing to do is catch it and take it to a vet and have it checked...just like we do with suspected dogs, raccoons, etc.

[kestrel91316]

19. The 21 abdominal injections went by the wayside 25 years ago

(thank you Jeebus!!) with the introduction of the human diploid cell vaccine. There have been continued refinements and improvements since then. These days if you get exposed to rabies and get the injections (properly administered) in a timely manner there is essentially ZERO chance of coming down with rabies. Medical progress is a truly amazing thing.

I had just ONE of those nasty old shots 25 years ago in vet school as part of a series of preventive vaccinations (pre-exposure) - they do that in us high-risk-group folks. That duck embryo vaccine was absolutely vicious!!!! When it was time for the next shot a month later the new vaccine was available (we were a test group for it) and the difference was like night and day.

[karlrschneider]

20. 25 years? Wow, time flies, I didn't realize it was that long ago.

A few years ago our cat dragged a squirrel in the house (middle of the night), I heard some commotion and got up to see what was up and saw the critter in the corner - I thought it was a dead rat (cat's usual prey) and half-asleep reached down and grabbed it. It bit the shit out of my hand 4 or 5 times before I made it to the door to toss it out. I remember thinking "damn, that thing might be rabid" but forgot about the next morning. Apparently it wasn't...or I'm typing from the grave. :D

[kestrel91316]

23. Well, I don't know that rabies has ever been found to occur

naturally in squirrels.

Fox, skunk, bat, raccoon, coyote.............those are the major species in the US to watch for rabies in. We have had a couple cases in possum here in SoCal. And I seem to recall hearing years ago about a single case in, of all things, a VULTURE.

No bunnies. No rats. No squirrels. Or so rare as to be of little concern.

[karlrschneider]

27. I'm surprised about the rats, they're so widely perceived to be filthy

critters but I get that isn't a requirement. I've had pet raccoons and one skunk. I've always known
about the coon risk but not the skunks...the one I 'adopted' was a little sweetie and never came close
to biting me (but he would crap in the closet if he couldn't get out) :D He would beg for food by
staring up at me and rap-tapping his front feet on the floor like a drum. And I never had him de-scented but except for a little occasional whiff of stink (leakage?) that was no problem either.
I think a dog or coyote got him, I let him out to potty one day and he disappeared.

[kestrel91316]

28. Rats have very clean personal habits, but they can carry a lot of

diseases. Possums can carry typhus. Raccoons harbor a roundworm parasite that can easily spread to and kill normal healthy adult humans or cause irreversible brain damage (don't ever go near a raccoon latrine). Squirrels can catch West Nile. The list goes on..........

Wildlife zoonoses are an interesting field of study, IMHO.

Hey, off-topic: They have seen a California Condor in Topanga Canyon (Los Angeles Co) for the first time in over a hundred years. I would love to see one here, but the city probably isn't a good place for them to find food, lol.

[kestrel91316]

11. Here's your homework assignment: Google " bats beneficial".

[eppur_se_muova]

13. Hmmm... "Bats and Rabies" shows up a lot in the results ...

from the story in the OP:

Those who can afford professional help call Perkins, who founded his company, Bat Busters, in the early 1990s, when a young woman died from rabies after she touched bats that flew into her office. ...

From 1990 to 2005, 31 of the 39 reported cases of human rabies were linked to bats, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Because bats have tiny teeth, people may not even realize they have been bitten. Humans also can get rabies from a bat scratch or bat saliva. The disease can be fatal without anti-rabies shots. In humans, that means six shots over 30 days.

Perkins said he has been bitten often and has been a frequent recipient of the rabies vaccine.

[kestrel91316]

15. Lol, I know all about rabies. I'm the vet who

diagnosed the most recent case of rabies in Los Angeles County (1987). I have been treated for it. I have dealt with a few rabies suspects who luckily didn't have it. And I spend time every day at work explaining to clients WHY they MUST be responsible citizens and vaccinate their pets for rabies.

For an interesting case, look up the girl in Wisconsin who survived clinical rabies a couple of years ago. Really amazing story. And yes, it was from a bat.

[SoCalDem]

14. Dude.. just stay outta the attic..

close up the gaps that allow them in, call someone to clean out the guano..hey free fertilizer..

Bats eat bugs and they are timid creatures.. leave them alone :)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Ooo, boo hoo hoo...

I can't go to abandoned railroad tunnels without the horrible inconvenience of foul odors!

Oh damn those tree hugging environmentalists! Damn them all to hell!

[eppur_se_muova]

24. Scan the article ... people are having to put up with this smell in/around their HOMES.

I was just commenting that I know that smell from experience. Pee-yew!

The railroad tunnel itself is "off limits" anyway; it's part of a park. People who want to see the bats can sit on the cliff above the opening and watch the bats emerge at sunset, but they're not supposed to disturb the bats during the day. From a distance, bats are as fascinating as anything in Nature, I just don't want them moving in. And I HAVE chased a bat out of my apt. If you haven't experienced that excitement for yourself, think twice about how close you want to keep bats.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. "This is bat country"

[KittyWampus]

21. Nice!

[Jamastiene]

22. Bats rule!!!

Without them, we'd all have malaria and who knows what else. Bats eat thousands of mosquitoes every night. Long live the bats.

[Bluebear]

25. "In one house alone, I estimated 10,000 in the attic" - sorry, Batfans...

that picture in my head scares the guano out of me!

[dysfunctional press]

26. "rats with wings"???

i'm sorry, but that moniker has already been assigned to pigeons.

[Nevernose]

31. Dogs and even bees kill FAR more people; bats kill ONE person a year

Secure the attic, you won't get bats. An ounce of prevention, and all that...

Most bats eat their own weight in insects every single night. They are the god's gift to farmers.

Many of them, about one percent, have rabies. If you see a bat on the ground, it is either injured or has rabies. Don't approach it, and you won't get bit, thus increasing your odds of not getting rabies from a bat to roughly one hundred percent.

You will find few more beneficial animals to mankind, yet SUPERSTITION is making them extinct.

The FAQ, with facts, from Bat Conservation International:
Should bats be tolerated or encouraged in our neighborhoods?
There are clear benefits to sharing our neighborhoods with bats, but as with any wild animal, they never should be tolerated inside our living quarters. Most bats that enter living areas are lost youngsters with no greater interest than a safe escape. They can be chased out through an open door or window or caught in a butterfly net, a leather gloved hand, or a coffee can slowly placed over them while a piece of cardboard is slid between the bat and wall. Rabies testing is expensive and unnecessary unless a possible rabies exposure has occurred. In the vast majority of cases, exclusion of bats from human living quarters is simple, inexpensive, and can be accomplished by the homeowner with minimal instruction. Exclusion of bats from an entire building is also feasible in most cases, though professional advice may be needed. More than 80% of bat colonies living in buildings go undetected by human occupants, but large colonies can cause odor or noise problems that justify exclusion. Many people simply exclude bats from entering living quarters while permitting them to remain in outer walls or in unused attics. When bats must be entirely excluded from a building, providing an adequate-sized bat house nearby can resolve a nuisance without sending it to a neighbor. Without such an alternative, evicted bats will attempt to move into a neighbor's home, or sicken and die, increasing the probability of being picked up by children or pets.

How can human living quarters be protected against bat entry?
Most bats that wander into human living quarters enter through a loose-fitting door to the outside or an attic, an open window, an unscreened chimney, or a gap in an outside wall. They must have spaces at least 3/4-inch in diameter or 3/8 by 7/8 of an inch to enter. A room by room search will quickly reveal such possible entry points. Holes or crevices are easily plugged with steel wool or silicone calking. Chimneys can be covered with half-inch hardware cloth screening, and loose fitting doors may be fitted with draft guards. Unlike rodents, bats do not chew holes, so are easily excluded. Even when bat colonies cannot be excluded from walls or attics, they can be kept out of human living areas.

PLEASE read the rest of the FAQ here at batcon.org:

http://www.batcon.org/home/index.asp?idPage=91&idSubPage=62