So I'm putting this here as a sort of public service. If you have never seen a rabid animal before, and you think you can handle watching it, I think it's a good idea to watch this. It's pretty upsetting to watch, so big CW on it, because this animal is essentially "dead but still moving." This is end-stage rabies. There is no saving this animal.
Before this stage, animals may be excessively affectionate or oddly tame-looking which is part of the reason why seeing people feeding foxes is upsetting to me. These animals might be, or might become, rabid, and there's no way to know without testing, which involves destroying the animal. Encouraging wild animals to be that close to humans is generally bad.
I grew up in the woods, so unfortunately we saw an uptick in rabid animals every spring -- you'd hear there was a rabid bat in this neighborhood or a rabid fox in this one -- but as wild animals and humans cross over more and more, we will see this more and more.
Opossums and squirrels extremely rarely get rabies, and we don't know why. They think the low body temperature of opossums inhibits the virus. The most common animals which get rabies in the US are raccoons, skunks, bats and foxes. Any animal 'acting unusually' -- not skittish around humans, biting at the air or at nothing ('fly-biting'), walking strangely (they kind of look like they have a string attached to their heads and walk kind of diagonal like they're being pulled along, a lot of the time) -- should be treated as though it's potentially rabid.
If you think you have been exposed to a rabid animal, including 'waking up in a room where a bat has gotten into it and there's a fucking bat in your room', please immediately go to the emergency room. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Post-exposure prophylaxis absolutely fucking sucks, it is a series of shots you'll have to get in two stages, it's done by weight, and it feels fucking nasty, but rabies is 100% fatal. I cannot stress enough how essential this is, having been through it.
Thank you for reading, I love everybody, the end.
To be clear, I have been through post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies. In 2005 or early 2006, I forget which exactly, @urbanprole and I woke up with a bat in our bedroom bc our apartment maintenance hadn't closed up the HVAC system after replacing filters. I shooed the bat out with a broom and it was acting normally for a bat but we didn't take any chances. (Thankfully, MK was at her dad's that weekend.)
I felt absolutely wretched the next day - the worst I've ever felt, excluding surgery and childbirth - after each series of shots. I had to get 2 sets on different days. I got 8 shots the first day, and Emet got like 13 or 15 bc she's very tall, and it's done by mass. The only thing I can think to compare it to is the depths of COVID, but without the coughing. Your immune system is Working Hard to update itself so it can recognize and fight any possible exposure.
I basically laid in bed and ached and sweated and groaned, but after it was over, I was fine.
Fewer than 20 people have ever survived rabies, and none are known to have survived without immediate post-exposure prophylaxis. Do not fuck around with this. Do not approach strange stray or wild mammals, especially without protective clothing.
Several comments on this post talking about 'why can't the US eradicate rabies entirely' and my friends, it can be really hard to understand how fucking big the United States is, and how weird it is to have basically 50 small countries in a trenchcoat. Like, we're fighting each other right now in courts over medicine, for one thing, and for another...
Like, one of the people commenting on this post and wondering this is from Portugal. Portugal is 35,603 square miles, and the United States is 3.97 million square miles. Portugal is 0.0093% the size of the United States, which... yeah. Like. The single state that I grew up in (Pennsylvania) is 46K square miles.
So, like, for one thing, this country is trying not to explode while a small group of people try to make it explode. And for another?
The US? Is. Fucking. Huge.
I studied rabies in college and let me tell you, and as previously stated; it is pretty much 100% fatal as soon as symptoms appear. You MUST get treatment as soon as you think you are exposed, your immune system will not just “take care of it”. NO. Rabies has an incubation period that varies depending on where you look, so symptoms will almost certainly not appear right away, that’s what gives us a chance to survive.
You DO NOT need to be bitten to contract rabies, you can get it from scratches, or even (rarely) if the saliva comes in contact with your mucosal membranes (eyes, nose, mouth)
This is also your PSA to GET YOUR FUCKING PETS VACCINATED, (in fact, most states in the US require you to have your pets vaccinated for rabies). Dogs are the #1 transmitter for rabies to humans worldwide. If you are in a high exposure environment (veterinary hospital, lab work involving rabies, or you’re around bats/ in caves often, or are travelling to countries where rabies is prevalent) look at getting yourself vaccinated too. (Psst, you can still get it even if none of these apply to you).
Will the vaccine prevent the disease? No, but it can help prevent the onset of symptoms, again, as soon as the symptoms start you are almost certainly dead. It is not a pleasant death either.
If you get the vaccine you still NEED to get treatment if you come in contact with the virus.
What do you do if you think you’ve come in contact with rabies:
Wash the wound with warm running water, and soap if possible for 15 minutes. Yes. 15. Whole. Minutes. While you’re doing that I recommend you are on the phone with your nearest hospital/ ER/ primary care doctor. Get the post-exposure prophylaxis ASAP.
Rabies is HIGHLY preventable, the biggest thing to do to prevent rabies is to LEAVE WILDLIFE ALONE! I’M SERIOUS. And especially DO NOT approach any animal you think may have rabies. Again, as previously stated if they are acting strangely; get somewhere safe, call animal control and wait it out. Do not approach it. Do not try to capture it. Do not think you can save it. You cannot. I promise. Additionally, don’t let your pets go into “wild” areas unsupervised. Get your pets vaccinated, as is required by law in most states.
Be Safe!

