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Davis Officials Warning Residents Not To Touch Dead Bats

DAVIS (CBS13) — Officials are on the lookout after at least a dozen bats have dropped dead in a Davis, two of which tested positive for rabies.

The bats were found near the overpass crossing on F Street.

For many in Davis, the evening noise of bats emerging is as familiar as the Delta Breeze. The bats roosting in many spots around Yolo County also create a spectacle in the sky at dusk.

"It's great. You'll go by and they're beeping at you periodically."

But there's a problem with some of the bats living under the bridge Rory Osborne bikes over at Covell Boulevard.

At least two of a dozen bats that have dropped dead recently tested positive for rabies.

Britney Shaull lives around the area and isn't worried about herself. But her dog at home?

"The fact that one could swoop down and bite him."

Most of the bats aren't looking to bite humans or animals, but if your dog or child were to handle a dead one, they could get rabies.

The majority of the bats don't carry rabies, and the recent cases don't mean it's necessarily an outbreak.

Haily Morgan runs a local bat rescue and says we're seeing more rabies cases, because there are more bats around.

"They come up during the summer to have their babies, so we have much larger numbers of bats during summer."

Rory says for now, the bats don't bug him because they like to eat West Nile Virus-carrying mosquitoes.

"If they get a Transylvanian accent, or a Romanian accent, then we probably have a problem. Then I'll take a different route."

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