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Yosemite waited months to reveal dead bat tested positive for rabies
New York Post • • health
Key Points:
- Yosemite National Park officials delayed for months in announcing that a bat found outside Curry Village in May tested positive for rabies, sparking public outrage.
- The National Park Service only informed the public via a Facebook post in October, urging anyone who had contact with the bat around May 18 to seek medical advice immediately.
- Rabies is nearly always fatal without prompt treatment, and symptoms can appear within days to weeks; however, no human contact with the bat is currently known.
- Yosemite hosts 17 species of bats, which are routinely tested for rabies as part of wildlife disease monitoring, with only a small percentage testing positive annually.
- The last rabies-positive bat in Yosemite was found in July 2025, and a recent rabies death in California involved a teacher bitten by a bat in her classroom in 2024.
