Rabid bat found on a sidewalk near UC Berkeley

by Iris Kwok

March 7, 2025, 4:50 p.m.March 7, 2025, 4:50 p.m.

A bat infected with rabies was recently found on a sidewalk near UC Berkeley, according to Alameda County’s health department. 

A UC Berkeley staff member reported a dead bat on the sidewalk outside an apartment building in the Southside neighborhood, one block from the university campus, in late February, said Valerie Ahlgren, a senior vector control biologist for Alameda County. The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s student newspaper, was first to report on the rabid bat. 

The bat, which Berkeley Animal Care Services picked up on Thursday, Feb. 27, was brought to the state Department of Health Care Services’ Richmond laboratory, said city spokesperson Matthai Chakko. Tests results came back positive for rabies the next day. 

After receiving the results, the county vector control on Monday distributed 120 leaflets explaining what to do if you have touched or may have been bitten by a bat. 

The flyer warns people to not touch or allow children or pets to touch bats or other wild animals. Other rabid animals could still be undiscovered, it reads. 

You’re asked to “report any animals roaming, staggering and unable to fly (bat) or otherwise acting in a strange manner in the daytime” by calling Berkeley Animal Care Services at 510-981-6600 or Alameda County Vector Control at 510-567-6800 (Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. through 5 p.m.).

Anyone who touched or may have been bitten by a bat should call Alameda County Public Health Acute Communicable Disease at (510) 267-3250 and seek preventive rabies information from a health care provider, according to the flyer. 

Bat bites are small and can be invisible, so if you discover a bat in your room, you’re advised to seek a health care provider. The bat did not appear to have been tampered with, according to the county — though it’s hard to know for certain whether other wildlife came into contact with it. 

Human rabies cases in California are rare but deadly. In 2012, a Contra Costa man died after contracting rabies from a bat. A bat that tested positive for rabies was found on a front porch in Central Berkeley in September 2024. There was another rabid bat case in the city in May 2023.

Rabid animal cases are a periodic occurrence in Berkeley, and the numbers are generally consistent with previous years. In both 2020 and 2021, Berkeley recorded one positive rabies case, according to data provided by Chakko. In 2022, 2023 and 2024, Berkeley recorded two cases per year. 

Berkeley is the only city within Alameda County to have its own environmental health division, and does its own record-keeping for rabies cases. The county, Berkeley not included, generally sees between one and four positive rabies bat cases per year, Ahlgren said. In 2023, the county recorded two, and in 2024, it recorded three. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s a lot or unusual for Berkeley to have two animals a year,” Ahlgren said. Residents can stay safe by not petting bats — “cute as they are” — and keeping their pet’s vaccines up-to-date, she added. 

City environmental health specialist Ron Torres has previously said that in Berkeley, the risk of rabies remains constant throughout the year, with no month more likely than the rest. Torres in 2023 said he does not recall any cases of humans contracting rabies since 2018, when he began working for the city. 

In previous rabid bat cases, Berkeley’s environmental health division has handled outreach regarding rabid bat cases, posting notices throughout the neighborhood the bat was found in. 

“Berkeley Vector Control was notified and we didn’t get a response from them so the county did outreach because… [the] bat was located around a bunch of student housing,” Ahlgren said. “We considered it urgent, so we did the outreach.” 

Asked why the county vector services stepped in, Chakko, the city spokesperson, said the county had already started working on outreach and “had staff available over the weekend.”