Are there risks of people overreacting to news of rabies in bats?
Rabies incidents involving bats are often distorted during media reporting. When risks are not kept in perspective, panicked people overreact in ways that increase rather than decrease the risk of rabies. Attempts to poison or exclude bats from buildings by inappropriate methods can dramatically increase human contact, as sick or homeless bats scatter to exposed positions throughout an entire neighborhood. Efforts to kill or evict bats invariably center on colonial species. Silver-haired bats and eastern pipistrelles, the two bat variances of the rabies virus most implicated in transmission to humans, overlap big and little brown bats in both roosting and feeding behavior. In urban settings, silver-haired bats are apparently less able to compete with the more colonial species and are scarce. When frightened humans declare war on bats, they may actually help these species by reducing their primary competitors.
