Speaking of bats---Just did a job in a back yard with tons of limestone features. As I was walking the job, I looked at the side of a limestone block and saw what I thought was a hanging art object. I bent down to touch it but luckily didn't make contact: It was a Mexican free-tailed bat and it was looking sick. I told the owner to get a box and net and he put the bat into the box. The next day it was dead. Hopefully he followed through with animal control since the bat was most likely rabid: Only very sick bats would be attached to surfaces in broad daylight. One of my good friends opened her patio door, last year, and had a bat fall on her. It turned out to be rabid. She got the rabies series injections. They're not as painful as they used to be but they're no fun, either. Austin loves its bat colony and tries to do things to enlarge it. I think it's crazy to do so. Yeah, bats eat tons of insects, and they draw millions of tourists to see them, but they are natural reservoirs for the rabies virus. If a mass infection makes its way through the over-populated colony that is under our Congress Avenue bridge, it could be big trouble for city folks.
