“When capturing a bat, it is important to not expose yourself to the animal. Wear leather gloves and use an ice cream pail, coffee can, or similar-sized container to capture the bat. Then call the Health Department to walk through your situation and determine if the bat needs to be sent in for testing,”
-Savannah Bergman, Rabies Program Manager at the Health Department.
As temperatures drop, bats and other animals often look for a new home indoors. This increases the chance for bats to have accidental contact with our family members and household pets (even our indoor pets).
“If you find a bat in your home and you know or think the bat may have come in contact with a human and/or a family pet, it is important to try and capture the bat and call the Health Department at 715-839-4718 so it can be submitted for rabies testing,” says Savannah Bergman, Rabies Program Manager at the Health Department. If the bat isn’t caught and submitted for testing, the person who was exposed may need to get a series of expensive injections to prevent rabies.
Bat exposures happen when a person or pet has any physical contact with a bat. Bat exposures can also happen when a bat is found in the same room with an unattended child or pet, a person with an intellectual disability, an intoxicated person, or anyone who’s been sleeping in that room.
“When capturing a bat, it is important to not expose yourself to the animal. Wear leather gloves and use an ice cream pail, coffee can, or similar-sized container to capture the bat. Then call the Health Department to walk through your situation and determine if the bat needs to be sent in for testing,” Bergman says.
In Wisconsin, skunks and bats are the animals most likely to carry the rabies virus by far. Bats don’t show signs of rabies, and it’s impossible to tell if they carry the virus without laboratory testing. It’s possible to get rabies even if you don’t see any bite marks from the animal. Bat bites or scratches can be so small that you don’t even notice them. Rabies is almost always transmitted through a bite, but it can also be transmitted if a rabid animal scratches a person, or if the animal’s saliva touches a break in the skin.
