WHEREAS, the North American Society for Bat Research is greatly concerned about public misperceptions regarding rabies in bats and the negative consequences for bats that are generated by those misperceptions; and
WHEREAS, the media and local public health agencies frequently overreact to incidental bat exposures, causing unnecessary eradication of bats or treatment of people not bitten by bats; and this results in actions and public perceptions that are costly to people, detrimental to bats, and provide no additional protection against rabies (Hout et al. 2008); and
WHEREAS, cases of rabies in humans in the United States and Canada are extremely rare, in large part due to robust public health systems that monitor and work to control the disease in domestic animals and wildlife (Brass 1994); and
WHEREAS, records maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that between the years 1950–2007, only 56 cases of bat-born rabies transmission to humans occurred in the United States and Canada, which translates to 3.9 cases per billion person-years (De Serres et al. 2008); and
WHEREAS, in Mexico, the leading cause of rabies in humans is related to a single species, the common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus (Schneider et al. 2009, Blanton et al. 2011); and
WHEREAS, most human rabies infections occur because victims are bitten and either do not realize the risk of being bitten or trivialize the wound and thus do not seek proper medical attention (De Serres et al. 2009); and
WHEREAS, those not seeking medical attention expose themselves to the possibility of severe illness and death (De Serres et al. 2009); and
WHEREAS, rabies is almost always fatal once contracted, but the disease is fully preventable if vaccine is administered soon after the bite of a rabid animal (Brass 1994).
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the North American Society for Bat Research at the 44th Annual North American Symposium on Bat Research, Albany, New York, 22–25 October 2014, recommends the following steps be implemented to provide bats appropriate protections worldwide. We as members of NASBR commit to:
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