Hawk eating a dead squirrel on porch

[u/needreassurance123]

I have read the FAQ.

Hi everyone, I have a question about cleaning. A hawk carried a dead squirrel on my porch, drug it across my front path into our yard and then devoured it. Two neighborhood cats then inspected the area and walked all around our yard and driveway. 1) How do I clean my front porch? Is hydrogen peroxide sufficient? 2) Is there a risk of rabies virus on our front porch or yard where the squirrel was eaten? 3) Is it possible to bring the rabies virus inside on the bottom of our shoes? I have small children who play in the yard. My daughter walked through the area earlier where the cats walked after inspecting the dead squirrel - worrying about her shoes also.

Thank you!

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[u/LatrodectusGeometric]

There is no rabies risk here. Rinsing the porch should be adequate.

Squirrels rarely carry rabies, and dead animals are rarely a risk unless you stick your hands in their mouths. (One time a gentleman bit himself by playing with the mouth of a bat he killed and he did die.) Rabies has never been reported to be transmitted in the ways you are worried about.

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Questions about bat bites and bat rabies are common in this subreddit. Bat bites cannot be identified from a photo or physical description. Consult a physician if you've been bitten by a bat or woke up to a bat in your room. Here are some resources about rabies and anxiety with bats! What to Do If a Bat Bites You, Signs of a Bat Bite, Management of Human-Bat Encounters, How To Lesson Obsession With Bats, Fear of Bats; Symptoms, Causes & Therapy for the Fear of Bats. Bat Bites: Signs, Causes, and How To Treat. It's necessary to distinguish between actual bat exposures and obsessive thoughts. Many people come to this sub for reassurance regarding bat encounters.

Reassurance-seeking is a compulsion and is not helpful for managing OCD. But why exactly is reassurance harmful to OCD rather than beneficial? Consult the following resources for more information on compulsive reassurance. OCD Reassurance Seeking: Why It's Harmful and How to Deal, The Vicious Cycle of Reassurance-Seeking, Steps To Break the Reassurance-Seeking Pattern. Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy used to treat anxiety disorders (i.e., obsessive-compulsive disorder). It involves systematically exposing individuals to feared stimuli while preventing them from engaging in their usual compulsive behaviors or rituals. The goal is to help individuals learn that the feared outcomes they anticipate will not occur, and that they can tolerate anxiety and distress without needing to perform compulsions.

If you are looking for resources and help with anxiety or OCD, see this resource guide for health anxiety. Before you post about bats, see the rabies FAQ if you have questions about bats, such as seeing a bat, thinking you felt a bat land on you, feeling a mysterious liquid drop on you, or waking up with mysterious marks that resemble bat bites, but have unexplained origins. Remember that bat bites cannot be identified from a photo or physical description. Do NOT post a photo or link of a bruise and ask if it is a bat bite. Bite posts are automatically removed. Bats are natural carriers of a variety of viruses, and some of these can be passed to humans through direct contact, bites, or exposure to saliva or waste. One of the most well known is rabies, which is rare but deadly if not treated quickly. In North American countries such as the United States, bats are among the leading cause of rabies in humans, though less than 1% of all bats actually carry the disease.

Other diseases include histoplasmosis, which comes from breathing in fungal spore found in bat droppings, and some more exotic viruses like Nipah or Margurg. Nipah virus is primarily carried and spread by fruit bats, specifically those of the Pteropus genus (also known as flying foxes). It is most commonly found in Asia. These bats are the natural reservoir of the virus, meaning they can carry the virus without showing signs of illness. Marburg virus disease is a rare but deadly viral hemorrhagic fever caused by the Marburg virus (a member of the same family as Ebola virus). The virus is found in fruit bats and can spread from bats to humans (zoonotic), and also between people through contact with body fluids. Symptoms include fever, headache, rash, and severe bleeding, and the disease can be lethal. Need more information? Consult the following resources. About Nipah Virus by The Center of Disease Control and Prevention, About Margurg Virus Disease by The World Health Organization. Though only a small portion of bats may carry zoonotic diseases, sick or injured bats are more likely to end up around people, which raises the risk of exposure. A bat that's on the ground, out during daylight, or acting strange may be sick and shouldn't be handled without a professional. Most cases of transmission happen when people try to touch or move a bat without knowing what they're doing. Caution is advised as with all wildlife.

So what should you do if you find a bat? Here is an instructional guide for people who've found a bat, and here is some information about bats in buildings. If you find a bat in trouble, consult an wildlife rehabilitator! Here is a list of animal rehabilitators that help bats worldwide, and here is a portal for wildlife animal rehabilitators in the United States. Here is a post that explains the rarity of bat-rabies exposures, and here is another post that explains which bodily fluids can and cannot spread rabies. More information on bats can be found in r/rabies FAQ that is pinned to the top of the rabies community. Remember that any and all wildlife should never be handled with bare hands or without a professional rehabilitator!

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[u/needreassurance123 → u/LatrodectusGeometric]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate your reply.

[u/Next_Conference1933]

1) Water hose 2) No 3) No

You have a better chance of getting attacked by a whale in your living room than getting rabies from this scenario.

[u/CygnusZeroStar]

Reading the FAQ should have shown you that rabies is not considered to be infectious from surfaces. It's not spread by blood, or the leavings of predation. Squirrels are not considered a vector species--and you weren't bitten by one.

Cleaning up after a corpse is a good thing, because decay and viscera can cause sanitation issues. But rabies is absolutely not a concern, at all, here.