Are bats likely to cause rabies outbreaks in other wildlife or in domestic animals?
There is no evidence that rabies from bats has ever triggered an outbreak in other animals. It occasionally does spill over into other species, causing individual animals to die, but even this is apparently rare. Despite the fact that numerous carnivores gather to feed on the 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats at Bracken Cave, Texas, no outbreaks of rabies are known from this source. No transmission from bats to dogs is known to have occurred, though rare cases of transmission to cats have been documented. The presence or absence of bats is irrelevant to the fact that all dogs and cats should be vaccinated.
