Mossey,
Rabies is transmitted through blood (bites?). I'll have to ask my sis about getting it from droppings.
Mossey,
Rabies is transmitted through blood (bites?). I'll have to ask my sis about getting it from droppings.
edkemper
Class: Valentine's Day weekend 2009
Feel the Bern!
You will never meet anyone who has ever met anyone who was infected with rabies. Just a guess on my part as to the rarity of the virus in the human population. I still like the bats but I get kinda creeped out by them so I don't play with 'em very often.
My Boy got tagged with the nickname "Batman" during his BSA years, stemming from a time on a work party when the scouts were all moving a bunch of roofing tin and somehow a bat ended up hanging on Jake's scout shirt directly over his rank patch. He/she (the bat) stayed there for the longest time and never seemed interested in transmitting diseases to anyone. I finally put on a glove and packed it off to a dark cubby hole.
Now for the part of my post that is completely contradictory. I work with a man who was bitten by a rat when he was 6 years old and survived a confirmed case of rabies without medical intervention. Stuff happens... That's why they call it stuff.
Wow, that IS a rare thing, LHN. My understanding was that it was ALWAYS fatal without medical help. That's one tough guy.
There were two possible cases of aerosol transmission of bat rabies in 1953 that occurred in people who worked in caves with large bat populations. There has been some experimental research done where aerosol transmission of rabies to other animals was documented in poorly ventilated situations (like caves). Because of this, spelunkers are advised to get vaccinated against rabies. All rabies cases since the 1953 cases have involved a bite from a bat which is rare unless you try and pickup/handle the critter. The transmission of the fungal respiratory/ocular infection Histoplasmosis from bat guano is typically of greater public health concern.
Blane, here in NC there were 16 cases of bat rabies out of 429 total cases of rabies in animals in 2011 (NC govt data). To put this in perspective, there were 25 cases in cats and the overwhelming majority of cases were seen in the feral populations of raccoons, foxes and skunks.
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-Thomas Jefferson
That sounds cool! I'll have to give that a try. I periodically will go out to my pool at the time when the sun is down, but still enough light to see the sky. Floating on my back in the pool and watching the sky, watching for the bats to fly above me - a real cool sight, indeed.
Marv
"Where there's a will, there's a way"
Bat problem solved! Last night we were working on laying out framing when we noticed the bat flying around. I saw him land on a rafter so I picked up a big 1x laying on the floor and took a swipe at him and missed. Well, as we were dodging him my son picked up a coat hanger and took a bead on him and let it go. The bat swooped at it and did not get out of the way in time and the plastic hanger flattened him. My son thinks he is a ninjha now
Ninja beats Batman.
As a whole, the LHBA system (and it is a system) of building, is simplicity at it's core, longevity at it's heart and strength throughout.
Build to your need, and....desire, and.....ability. And be secure in your decision.
http://picasaweb.google.com/parent.j...gHomeBuilding#
Purple martins are prolific sqeeter eaters. Bats are good too. I'd go the bat box away from the house. Then again, let it get dark, then leave a light on inside til daylight. Bats usually won't return to a lighted area. If you can tell where they are nesting direct a light to that area, they usually will....."move".
My father was voted the "Purple Martin landlord of the year" in 2001, by the Purple Martin Conservation Association. I have studied and worked with this species for many years.
There was a fellow who owned an aluminum products manufacturing business many years ago. When plastics replaced a lot of aluminum applications, the manufacturing business almost went broke. This guy needed a new product line to save his factory. He decided to build Purple Martin products and as an advertisement gimmick, he printed "A purple Martin can eat 2,000 mosquitoes per day!". That is a true statement. "I can eat 5,000 mosquitoes per day." is also a true statement. I don't eat mosquitoes, but I could. The guy was a genius! He still prints this on his martin products and probably 99% of the U.S. population believes that Purple Martins eat mosquitoes. Extensive studies have proven that they don't, but the fable lives on. You should see the size of the dragonflies that martins bring in to feed their kids!
I don't try to convince people that martins don't eat mosquitoes, anymore. But, birds eat during the day. Mosquitoes are generally out in the dusk/dark. Martins feed exclusively on flying insects, high in the air. Mosquitoes are usually close to the ground. It goes on, but you get the point.
Another Purple Martin "host" (the eastern species of martin relies upon man to provide nest boxes and is now totally dependent on us for its continued existence) wrote to me, proudly, about his cat killing a bat. When I reminded him that bats were native, cats were introduced to North America, are the second highest reason for the extinction of small animals in North America and kill simply for the sake of killing, he asked me to remove his name from my list of contacts. No problem.
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