Are Bats Dangerous To Humans?

Most bats are completely harmless to human beings. Depending on where you live, you have probably seen bats flying around in huge swarms while out and about outdoors. However, not every bat in the world should be dismissed as harmless. While there are no bats in existence that prey on human beings (even the scary sounding vampire bats) bats can indeed spread disease. However, sustaining a bite from a bat is exceptionally rare.

There are plenty of popular misconceptions regarding bats, and this is mostly due to movies that show bats hurling towards people from the sky and getting caught in people’s hair. This is a ridiculous scenario that has probably never happened in the history of mankind. If you insist that you have seen a bat take a nosedive towards you, then it was probably after a bug, and not your face. Bats feed on insects, fruit, small animals and even some mammals, but not humans. Luckily vampire bats don’t seem to have a taste for human blood.

If you believe that bats are nevertheless still dangerous because they carry rabies, it should be kept in mind that less than one percent of the global bat population contracts rabies. If a bat did contract the rabies virus, it would die in a very short time anyway. It would make more sense to fear raccoons or opossums rather than bats when it comes to contracting rabies. It is also commonly believed that people contract rabies from bats regularly around the world. However, the fact is, only one or two people per year die every year in the United States from bats. Believe it or not more people die of polio and leprosy than rabies from bats in the United States every year. Furthermore, if you were to be bitten by a bat, then you would definitely know it, and finding treatment in time will most certainly prevent illness. So if you are afraid of jogging at night because of all the bats flying about, you now know that you were silly forever worrying, so jog away.

Has a bat ever accidently run into you while you were outdoors?