The Current Boom In The Vampire Bat Population Has Experts Worried About Rabies | Atlanta Wildlife Removal

Livestock breeders from both North and South America are becoming increasingly worried about the vampire bat population and its relationship with feral pigs. Researchers have recently found a correlation between the populations of boars and vampire bats. Vampire bats must feed on blood, and as long as the wild boar population is increasing, bats have an ever-growing source of satisfying blood. This could eventually cause problems for cattle breeders since the higher number of wild boars infected with rabies could make transmission to cattle much more probable.

Amazingly, of the twelve hundred different bat species in existence, only three of these species feed exclusively on blood, and all three of those species are located in the Americas. Researchers have estimated that there is a ten percent chance that a vampire bat will attack a feral pig on any given night. This may not seem like a number to worry about, but wild boars are notoriously successful at spreading their population over vast stretches of land and across different species of boars and pigs. And it does not help that vampire bats are particularly fond of pig’s blood.

Name one particular method of preventing the spread of rabies in livestock? Do animals also receive vaccines?