The brown bat found hanging above a La Quinta home’s front door the morning of June 20 was a troubling sign, since the nocturnal creatures normally roost in dark spaces during the day.
Eight days later, the now-dead female with the 9-inch wingspan, pink face and tiny sharp fangs was laid out on a cutting board at Riverside University Health System Public Health Laboratory.
Armed with forceps, a scalpel and a rabies vaccination, senior lab assistant Lainie Finnell cut a flap in the skull, pulled out the bat’s brainstem and cerebellum and mixed them in vials before transferring small portions to two slides so the tissue could be tested for rabies.
A La Quinta homeowner had called Riverside County Animal Services to collect the bat after finding the mammal outside her door at 10:35 a.m.
“He was probably looking for a nice place to sleep. Scared her. Now he’s here,” said Finnell. “If you see him walking around on the ground during daylight, I’d be freaked out. That isn’t normal behavior.”
Finnell worked alone behind a closed door hung with the sign “Welcome to the bat cave.”
She called the furry bat with long ears “cute.” She still wore a disposable apron and disposable white lab coat, disposable sleeves, at least two gloves on each hand and a plastic face shield to perform the necropsy.
Infected animals can give people rabies, although that’s rare.
The region’s most common bats include Mexican free-tailed bats and big and little brown bats. Numbers grow in wet years because there are more mosquitoes and other insects to eat, said San Bernardino Animal Health Investigator Megan Starbeck.
“Most of your general population has no idea there’s even bats flying around,” she said.
Bats most commonly spread the rabies virus in this country. Other wildlife and unvaccinated cats and dogs also can carry the disease.
Rabid bats are found most often in this region from late spring through fall, as more migrating Mexican free-tailed bats are summering here, said Dr. Allan Drusys, chief veterinarian for Riverside County Animal Services.
Animal control agencies, which were established to prevent the spread of rabies, typically get service calls when people notice bats in odd places during the day. However, bats don’t have to look sick or act strangely to be carrying rabies.
“They can appear and actually be completely normal and be harboring the virus,” Drusys said.
Risks of touching
Like most of those tested, the La Quinta bat’s rabies test was negative.
So far this year, one bat has been found to have rabies in San Bernardino County and two in Riverside County.
San Bernardino County’s rabid bat was found May 10 hanging on a wall at Redlands East Valley High School, but no one came into contact with it, said county health department spokeswoman Claudia Doyle.
A bat found recently in Menifee and another collected in La Quinta earlier this year also tested positive, said Barbara Cole, Riverside County’s director of disease control.
On June 20, another bat was collected from a classroom speaker at Shadow Hills High School in Indio but tested negative at Riverside County’s lab.
Bats roost in caves and tree hollows out in the wild. But they may try to roost in and around buildings in urban areas. The animals are typically reported to animal control when they’re found near front doors, flopping on the ground or brought home by cats.
Most people who get rabies don’t know they’ve been bitten or come into contact with bats, which can happen while people are sleeping or may involve a child or elderly person who’s unaware or unable to communicate, Drusys said.
Last August, a bat flew into a truck’s open window in a Coachella Valley off-roading area and landed in a cup at dusk. A Corona-area woman in the truck and her friend didn’t know what it was.
The rabid bat bit the woman’s hand when she reached into the cup to clean what she thought was trash. The woman survived after being treated at a hospital, said Riverside County public health department spokesman Jose Arballo Jr.
Other people don’t realize the risks involved with touching a bat. All it takes is a bite or scratch. But just handling a bat could spread rabies through cuts in human skin.
On Aug. 25, someone in Lake Elsinore put a bat in a box and showed the animal to as many as seven others, including children. The bat was reportedly petted. Testing later showed it had rabies.
If untreated, rabies travels through nerves to the brain and can lead to brain inflammation and delirium, strange behavior, fear of water, paralysis and death in one to three months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Public health and animal control experts warn people to avoid touching bats, especially those out during the day, and to seek medical evaluation if you may have come into contact with one.
Even potential exposure must be reported to animal control and public health agencies.
Avoid contact with unfamiliar or injured animals, whether they’re wild or domestic. Keep pets’ rabies vaccinations updated, said Lea Morgan, public health program coordinator for San Bernardino County.
Treatment isn’t as painful as it once was. People exposed to rabies used to need 14 to 23 injections in the abdomen.
Now, they get five or six shots in the arm — a shot of human rabies immune globulin for more immediate protection and a rabies vaccine series given over two to four weeks that costs $600 to $800, Cole said.
“We don’t try to frighten people. But rabies in humans is nearly always fatal,” Cole said. “Bats aren’t something to play with.”