NORFOLK, MASS. (WHDH) - A bat in Norfolk tested positive for rabies this week after the town’s animal control officer captured it in a local home.
Officer Hilary Cohen in a post on Norfolk Animal Control’s Facebook page said she responded near 11:30 p.m. on Monday after a homeowner on Mountain Rock Lane reported finding a bat in her house.
The homeowner and her dog managed to isolate themselves in a room where the bat could not enter. Cohen arrived after roughly 15 minutes and soon isolated the bat in another room.
Cohen identified the animal as a large brown bat and said she noticed it seemed “off” in its behavior, swooping at her and at fixed objects.
“Once isolated in the room the bat was not landing anywhere but was consistently swooping towards objects, approaching walls but not landing, and just not behaving in a manner that bats normally do,” Cohen said.
Cohen said she eventually captured the bat in a net and removed him from the house. One day later, Cohen said, a lab in Boston confirmed the bat had rabies.
Cohen said the Massachusetts Department of Epidemiology was in contact with the homeowner about risk rabies exposure for her and for her pet. Though the dog was up to date on his rabies vaccine, Cohen said it will be evaluated by Norfolk’s animal inspector. The dog will also be subject to quarantine procedures.
“If the dog was not vaccinated we most likely would be having a different conversation than we are having today,” Cohen said.
Cohen urged pet owners to keep their pets up to date on their rabies vaccine and said anyone who sees a bat in their home should contact either an animal control department or their local police department.
Little brown bats and big brown bats have been found in communities across much of Massachusetts according to the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. After plummeting between the 1940s and 1960s due to pesticide use, bat populations rebounded in the region. They started shrinking again in the 2000s after the discovery of white-nose syndrome, a deadly fungus that grows over bats while they hibernate.
According to the CDC, bats are the most commonly reported animal carriers of rabies, with most deadly human rabies infections tracing back to rabid bat exposure.
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