The BBC recently reported 500 attacks and the death of at least four children in communities of the remote parts of Peru due to attacks by rabid vampire bats. Peru's health ministry consequently sent emergency teams to help vaccinate villagers in the area plagued by the rabid bats. Such incidents in the past among vampire bats, at least in the Amazon, have been linked to deforestation for cattle ranching, which has dramatically expanded in the region over the past few decades, as the bats will turn from their usual diet of wildlife as natural habitat is destroyed. The highest toll of these rabid bat attacks in the Amazon was 73 deaths back in 1990.
So, control of the bat population is a bit of an ethical conundrum. We obviously have a problem on our hand because we can't let bats attack people (and I'm sure the experience isn't pleasant, rabid or not). Then again, you can't help but feel bad because it's, in large part, our fault... but so are many things...
No comments:
Post a Comment