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15 April 2003
Bats and Rabies
Professor Colin A Galbraith
SNH Director of Scientific and Advisory Services
Reproduced from Scotland’s Natural Heritage
Magazine
Issue no 22 Spring 2003 page 5
(Filed 15 April 2003)
www.land-care.org.uk
The recent sad death of a member of the Angus
bat group has led to a reappraisal of how humans and bats should
interact in Scotland.
Our clear advice remains to the general public
not to touch bats if they come into close proximity to them. They
should, in the meantime, phone our helpline number which is 01738
458 649* (office hours) or 07774 161 219 ** (outwith office hours)
and the SNH Bat Team will deal with the issue.
We hope to maintain the Bat Team and the helpline
number over the spring-time period when bats emerge from hibernation.
Meantime, SNH is working actively with other Government
departments and will be putting out a range of information throughout
the spring-time period.
As this magazine goes to press (editor:
we do not know when) we are working on advice notes for the
general public, bat roost owners, developers who might come across
bats in old buildings and for others who may come in contact with
bats such as volunteer bat workers.
At the time of writing (editor:
which we do not know) most bat handling licenses remained
suspended although we hope to be able to reinstate them by spring.
SNH has begun a scientific review of bats and
rabies world-wide, focusing on experiences in other European countries.
This will give us clarity on the extent of the disease overall and
further information on how other countries view the problem.
We are currently assembling bat population information
already collected and held by the organisation and others across
Scotland to produce one central information source on bat locations.
We are soon to begin blood testing of bats at
a number of winter roost areas and developing in detail field methodology
for sampling bats across Scotland come spring-time.
This work will determine if any bats have been
exposed to the rabies virus and will allow us to gauge to what extent
the virus is found in different bat populations.
The proposed research is likely to run over three
years, however the current phase is an initial testing and validation
of methodology and other issues.
In the meantime people can minimise any risk by
not handling bats.
Professor Colin Galbraith
Land-Care Notes
* Land-Care attempted to call this number on Monday 14th April
at 16.17 hours. The call was answered by the main SNH switch board
and informed that the person dealing with the bat helpline was
on holiday. After expressing some surprise as this helpline number
had been read in the Spring issue of SNH magazine, the telephone
receptionist referred the call through to another line, only to
receive a message that this person was not at his desk. Land-Care
awaits a return call.
** In the absence of a return call, Land-Care phoned the outwith
office hours number later that evening. The number rang out with
the eventual announcement “sorry there is no reply”.
SNH called the following morning, apologising that they had not
resonded the previous evening as they had not picked up the call
until late at night and thought it was too late to return the
call. So much for Professor Galbraith’s promises and aspirations
regarding advising the public about bats that are potentially
rabies infected.
The information Land-Care is seeking is whether or not the Bat
Team has now been fully reconstituted as hoped by Professor Galbraith,
it now being spring-time and bats may be on the move.
Land-Care is also curious to know whether SNH is running a competent
Bat Helpline as it claimed it hoped to do. There seemed to be
no valid reason as to why it might not be able to do so. The unvaccinated
bat worker died on 24th November 2002, almost six months ago.
Vaccination against rabies is a simple and essentially uncomplicated
procedure. Why should there be a problem? SNH interested in bats,
not people? Bat workers no longer so keen to work with bats? Apathy?
Or just plain incompetence with 750 staff with so much to do?
www.land-care.org.uk
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