The Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory has confirmed that nine bats in five counties tested positive for rabies this year.
The WSVL conducted 575 rabies tests across Wyoming between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31. Rabies-positive bats were found in Albany, Campbell, Laramie, Park, and Sheridan counties.
Most of those counties had one positive case. Park County had two, and Sheridan County had four.
Bats that tested positive for rabies have turned up in Carbon, Goshen, Sweetwater and Teton counties in previous years.
Are rabid bats a rabid problem in Wyoming?
M. Brock Fenton, emeritus professor of biology at Western University in Ontario, Canada, is one of the world’s leading experts on bat biology. He doesn’t think Wyomingites should be concerned, so long as they’re proactive and take precautions.
"Rabies doesn't take prisoners,” he told Cowboy State Daily. "The main thing is to, without fail, get the shot as soon as possible."
Little Skin Pricks
Only one Wyoming resident has died of rabies, and it was after an encounter with a bat.
In 2015, 77-year-old Karen Farthing of Lander woke up with a silver-haired bat on her neck. Farthing's rabies infection wasn't confirmed until she had been transferred in critical condition to a hospital in Salt Lake City.
Her family did not find a visible bite wound, and she did not seek medical care after the encounter.
By then, it was too late to treat Farthing. She died on Oct. 3, 2015.
Fenton said incidents like these are rare but dangerous.
“There's an alarming number of well-documented examples of people being exposed to a bat, like a kid coming home with a bat bite on their nose, and everybody said, ‘It's just a bat. Don't worry about it,’ but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get vaccinated,” he said.
Bat bites and scratches can be so small as to seem almost negligible, but they can still transmit rabies if the bat was carrying the disease.
In Farthing’s case, the potential exposure was not recognized because no visible bite marks were found.
Fenton said anyone who encounters a bat should seek medical attention, even if they don’t notice any wounds. Because rabies is almost always fatal when left untreated, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
"The shot gives you protection, and then you can get tested to find out how much protection you actually have," he said. "People who study bats, like me, get the damn shot right away."
Don’t Get Batty
Big brown bats are among the most common bats in Wyoming. Like other bat species, they can carry rabies.
In August 2025, a colony of brown bats was discovered in a group of cabins next to Jackson Lake Lodge.
The Wyoming Department of Health had to track down potentially exposed guests from 38 states and seven countries to inform them of potential exposure. About 500 people had stayed in the affected cabins during the period when bats were present.
Bats, especially brown bats, tend to avoid people and only bite when threatened or provoked. When frightened, bats might bite or scratch someone in their panic.
Even then, the risk of encountering a rabid bat is low.
“Most bats don’t carry rabies as we know it, or there would be a lot of people getting rabies all the time,” Mark Dowell, a doctor at Rocky Mountain Infectious Diseases in Casper, told Cowboy State Daily in 2024. “You have to be in the wrong place at the right time.”
Fenton said late fall and early winter increase someone’s chances of encountering a brown bat.
“At this point, the bats are moving out of their summer quarters and into their winter quarters,” he said. “For big brown bats, that's usually buildings or hollow trees, but they're not going to be in large numbers. They're going to be in dribs and drabs.”
Fenton was the lead author of a 2024 paper about how bat biologists can safely protect themselves from rabies transmission while handling and studying bats.
The key takeaways — preventing exposures and responding quickly and appropriately if exposed through a bite or scratch — are good points for anyone to heed if they suspect a possible exposure to rabies after being bitten or scratched by a bat, skunk, or other animal that can carry the virus.
In 2024, 15 skunks in Sheridan County tested positive for rabies. Skunks are another common rabies carrier in Wyoming, but a skunk bite is much more noticeable than a bat bite.
Since rabies isn’t normally transmissible through the air or on surfaces, people generally need to have direct contact with an infected animal’s saliva, such as through a bite, scratch or contact with an open wound or mucous membrane.
However, people who wake up in a room with a bat should seek a risk assessment even if they do not remember touching it.
He also encouraged people to ignore the “backgroundologists” who caution against vaccinations.
“The person who doesn't believe that you should get vaccinations doesn't get vaccinations and dies,” he said. “What really irritates people who study rabies and me is that death is entirely preventable. You get the shots, you don't have a problem.”
Getting Real About Rabies
Rabies is a viral disease that causes severe brain inflammation in mammals. If untreated, it’s nearly always fatal once symptoms develop.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the animals most frequently found with rabies in the U.S. are bats, skunks, raccoons, and foxes.
Around 100,000 Americans receive post-exposure treatment for rabies after a possible exposure each year, but fewer than 10 people die.
The World Health Organization estimates that rabies causes about 59,000 human deaths worldwide each year. About 95% of those deaths occur in Africa and Asia, and dogs are responsible for up to 99% of human rabies cases.
Fenton’s been bitten by several bats, including rabid bats, and he’s still kicking. The key to survival is getting post-exposure treatment promptly.
“The incidence of rabies in bats is not particularly high, at least in this part of the world,” he said. “The trouble is that people who are exposed should get the post-exposure treatment, and they should do it right away.”
Medical care after a rabies exposure is called post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). It consists of wound care and a series of four or five rabies vaccines.
Anyone who's been directly exposed to a bat should seek medical advice as soon as possible, especially if they have a small wound after the encounter.
People who wake up to find a bat in their room, or who are unsure whether they had contact with one, should also contact a health care provider or public health department for a risk assessment.Rabies vaccinations are expensive, but the alternative is far worse.
“The cost of not doing it right away is dying,” Fenton said.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
