Home/Bat Contact and Rabies
Bat in a Hattiesburg House: What Counts as Contact
The question that matters with a bat in a Hattiesburg house is simple: could anyone have touched it? Mississippi’s health department counts any contact as a high-risk rabies exposure, because you usually cannot see a bat bite.
What counts as contact
MSDH sets the bar low on purpose. Because a bat can bite without leaving anything you would notice, touching one counts as a serious exposure in its guidance even when the skin looks fine. In practice, think about:
- a bat found in a room where someone was asleep;
- a bat near a baby, a young child, or anyone who could not say whether it touched them;
- a bat a dog or cat has had in its mouth or paws;
- anyone who picked a bat up, alive or seemingly dead.
Any one of those, and MSDH wants a medical professional consulted straight away.
Keep the bat if you can
Walk out, shut the door behind you, and leave the bat where it is: that is MSDH’s three-step answer. A bat that may have touched a person or an animal should go for testing whether it is alive or not, and epidemiology staff at MSDH can tell you how.
CDC describes a safe capture if you are asked to do one: leather work gloves, a box or jar placed over the bat once it lands, and cardboard slid underneath and taped down.
Where there was contact and the bat has vanished, do not wait: MSDH’s advice is to see a doctor or go to an emergency department promptly.
MSDH Office of Epidemiology: 601-576-7725, after hours 601-576-7400. Hattiesburg Animal Control: 601-554-3603. Emergency: 911.
Bats outside the house
Bats keep to the edges of the day and the dark, MSDH points out. One out at midday, lying on the ground, sitting somewhere odd, or acting strangely is one to keep away from, and that goes for a bat that looks dead too. Hattiesburg’s police animal control procedures say an officer responds to any report of an injured animal.
Watch the roofline at sunset and note where they exit. We forward requests to a professional working in Hattiesburg and Forrest County where one is available. Request a quote →
Getting a colony out
On colonies, MSDH says only that a professional pest control provider should handle removal or exclusion. Bats are regulated nongame mammals under MDWFP’s rule 2.3, and three Mississippi species have federal endangered status. That rules out poison and points to exclusion, where the bats are let out and kept out.
Mississippi publishes no maternity dates. Young bats that cannot fly cannot leave through a one-way device, so ask any company how it checks for pups before sealing a summer roost, and how it confirms none are left inside afterwards. We do not publish prices. For local roost notes, see bat removal in Hattiesburg.
Questions people ask
Does a bat bite always leave a mark?
Often not. Mississippi’s health department describes bat bites as small enough to go unfelt and unseen. So it counts touching a bat at all as a serious rabies exposure, with or without a visible wound.
The bat got away before I could catch it. Now what?
When someone may have touched it and the bat is gone, MSDH wants them seen quickly, by their own doctor or at an emergency department. If nobody had contact, there is nothing to test, but look for how it got in.
Who in Hattiesburg do I call about testing a bat?
MSDH’s epidemiology office explains testing on 601-576-7725, and on 601-576-7400 out of hours.
How many kinds of bats live around Hattiesburg?
Statewide, the MDWFP museum counts fourteen documented species, and three carry federal endangered status. It gives no count for Forrest County.
Request a quote
We read every request and pass it to a licensed wildlife operator covering Hattiesburg where one is available. We are still building our list of operators here, so we cannot promise one is available or say how quickly they will respond.
Sources (checked November 7, 2026)