{"id":80518,"date":"2026-09-16T23:30:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T03:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=80518"},"modified":"2026-09-16T23:30:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T03:30:31","slug":"bat-tests-positive-for-rabies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/09\/16\/bat-tests-positive-for-rabies\/","title":{"rendered":"Bat Tests Positive for Rabies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A live bat found on 8th Street in the Eloise area of Winter Haven has tested positive for rabies, marking Polk County&#8217;s sixth confirmed animal rabies case of 2026.<sup><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-dominant-color=\"967761\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #967761;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"678\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/unnamed-7.webp?fit=1024%2C579&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-80519 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/unnamed-7.webp?w=1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/unnamed-7.webp?resize=300%2C170&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/unnamed-7.webp?resize=766%2C433&amp;ssl=1 766w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/unnamed-7.webp?resize=1024%2C579&amp;ssl=1 1024w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Key Incident Details<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Incident:<\/strong> On Thursday, September 10, a resident picked up an animal in her yard after mistaking it for a mouse, only to realize it was a live bat.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Testing:<\/strong> Animal Control Officers recovered the bat and sent the carcass to a state laboratory. Test results received on September 15 confirmed the animal was rabid.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Medical Follow-Up:<\/strong> Officials notified the resident and advised her to contact the Florida Department of Health immediately to receive post-exposure medical treatment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Public Safety Guidance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Do Not Touch Wildlife:<\/strong> Never handle wild animals, especially bats or raccoons, even if they appear injured, unable to fly, or unusually docile. Bat bites and scratches can be extremely small and go unnoticed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Report Exposure:<\/strong> If you or a pet come into contact with a wild, stray, or unusually acting animal, contact the <strong>Polk County Sheriff&#8217;s Office Animal Control Section<\/strong> at <strong>863-577-1762<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A live bat found on 8th Street in the Eloise area of Winter Haven has tested positive for rabies, marking Polk County&#8217;s sixth confirmed animal rabies case of 2026. Key&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDlcL3VubmFtZWQtNy53ZWJwP2ZpdD0xMDI0JTJDNTc5JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiQmF0IFRlc3RzIFBvc2l0aXZlIGZvciBSYWJpZXMiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.jqFU_SIdB6A-fOLQnqszmn718YDoFdMBBM16yXGuzSUMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDlcL3VubmFtZWQtNy53ZWJwP2ZpdD0xMDI0JTJDNTc5JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiQmF0IFRlc3RzIFBvc2l0aXZlIGZvciBSYWJpZXMiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.jqFU_SIdB6A-fOLQnqszmn718YDoFdMBBM16yXGuzSUMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[15415,15417,17192,15212,15414,17250,15190],"class_list":["post-80518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-animal-control","tag-bat","tag-florida-department-of-health","tag-public-health","tag-rabies","tag-wildlife-safety","tag-winter-haven"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80521,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80518\/revisions\/80521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}