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For Immediate Release
Date: October 4, 2016
Contact: Leslie Piotrowski
(847) 377-8055
Hannah Goering
(847) 377-8099
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Waukegan, Ill.- The Lake
County Health Department/Community Health Center is urging residents to avoid
bats. During fall, people may encounter bats more frequently since some
bats are migrating and others are looking for winter quarters, which may be
people’s attics. While bats have mainly beneficial effects, with some species
able to eat up to 600 insects in an hour, they are also the only animals that
have tested positive for rabies in Lake County.
Thus far this year, the Health
Department has submitted 38 bats for testing and three tested positive for
rabies. This finding is similar to previous years as about 4% of Lake County
bats tested carry rabies on average. The Health Department is urging anyone who
has direct contact with a bat or notices a bat acting in an unusual manner,
such as flying in daylight or lying on the ground or in your home, to contact Animal
Care and Control at: (847) 377-4700. If the bat is in the living quarters of
your home, trained animal wardens will remove the bat at no cost to the
resident. When a bat is not in the living quarters of your home (an
attic, garage or crawl space, for example), the wardens will provide a referral
to others that can assist with its removal. The Health Department may need to
submit the bat for rabies testing if a household member has had contact with
it.
Parents should make sure children
know that they should never touch a bat that is lying on the ground. The bat
may not be dead, just ill, and could bite.
Pet owners should be on the alert for bats near their homes, because
pets that spend time outdoors can easily come into contact with these animals.
If a rabid animal bites a pet, the pet may also
develop rabies and present risk to humans. Rabies can be avoided in pets by
vaccination, which is why a rabies vaccination is required for dogs and cats.
The Health Department can also
refer callers to bat exclusion companies and provide information on methods for
excluding bats. Bats can be excluded
from living quarters by covering chimneys and vents with half-inch hardware
cloth screens, by installing draft guards beneath doors, and by sealing any
other possible access routes, especially around screen doors, windows and
plumbing. Bats potentially can enter holes
as small as 3/4” in diameter. They do not chew insulation or otherwise make new
holes. Their entries must then be covered or plugged. For small crevices, silicone caulking may
help. If a large bat colony must be
evicted from a wall or attic, careful observations should be made at dusk to find entry holes (also
sometimes recognizable by stains around used holes or crevices or by droppings
beneath). The holes should be plugged after the bats emerge to feed (which they
do during evening hours).
For more information, visit: http://www.lakecountyil.gov/858/Rabies.
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