Information for School Administrators
Every year in Colorado, children find rabid bats on schools grounds and bring rabid bats to school for show-and-tell. Several of these incidents result in children having to be vaccinated for rabies each year, which entails a 2 week series of vaccinations. Since rabies is fatal, such an exposure that goes unreported to adults could lead to the tragic loss of a child’s life.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) believes that prevention of contact between bats and children is extremely important and includes three key components:
- Educating children to not touch bats or other wildlife and to immediately report a bat found on the ground to an adult
- Informing school staff on what to do if a bat is found on the ground
- Decreasing the chance of bats being found on school grounds by:
- informing school officials on the importance of discouraging bats from roosting in or on school buildings
- implementing training for county environmental health specialists to inspect schools to identify the presence of roosting bats, and
- providing resources to schools for what to do if a bat colony is on school grounds
Teaching Children about Bats
Children
need to be shown what a real bat looks like, since most people have only
seen bats either in cartoons or flying in the air from a distance at
dusk. When a bat is on the ground, it is difficult for both children
and adults to recognize it as a bat, because the wings may be folded
inward. Children should be taught to not touch a bat and to
immediately tell an adult. Adults must learn the safe way of
capturing a bat.
Please consider showing your children the Arizona Department
of Health Services (ADHS) video "Bats and
Rabies at Schools
and the Spanish version "Bats and
Rabies at Schools.
If you are a school administrator, teacher, or school nurse,
please consider showing the Rabies Educational Video designed for
school staff: Bats at Schools
CDPHE will soon be posting/imbedding the same videos with CDPHE logos to replace ADHS logos.
Please also consider printing and distributing the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment children’s rabies poster to your local schools where bat colonies may be roosting. In order to obtain the data file for a 17x22 version of the Bats at Schools poster, please contact the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment at 303-692-2700.
Maricopa County Animal Care & Control in Phoenix, Arizona, has created several educational materials related to pet care, dog bites, and rabies, including a comic book for children on bats in English and Spanish. Check out the "My Friend Toby" Bat Bites comic book [PDF] (also available in Spanish [PDF]) published by Maricopa County for a fun way to educate children about bats and rabies.”
If a bat is found on the ground, cover it with a small box or
other solid container. Gently slip a piece of cardboard between the ground
and box and slide the bat into the box. Use leather gloves to prevent
accidental contact between hands and the bat. Make sure that all
seams are tightly sealed, because bats can fit through small
crevices. Call your local animal control agency. Assure that
the bat is not within a child’s or pet’s reach.
Schools with Bat Colonies
If your school has a colony of bats roosting on school grounds, CDPHE recommends calling the Colorado Division of Wildlife to find a local wildlife trapper with expertise in bat exclusion.
The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Office has created
“Batty about Bats,” an educational document on the biology of bats,
integrated pest management (IPM) for bats, and rabies prevention.
The IPM portion of this document includes steps that schools can implement
to discourage bats from roosting on the outside of buildings.
However, removal and/or exclusion of bats from the interior of a building
or structure should be conducted by a local wildlife trapper with
expertise in bat exclusion. For more information about IPM related to
bats, please view “Batty about Bats” on the University of Arizona
Cooperative Extension webpage: http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/insects/az1456.pdf
.
- Bat photos courtesy DesertUSA.Com.