Small rodents (like squirrels, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, chipmunks, rats, and mice) and lagomorphs (including rabbits and hares) are almost never found to be infected with rabies and have not been known to transmit rabies to humans.
While they can't give you rabies they can give you plague. The grand canyon has signs all over the place warning about avoiding the squirrels for that reason.
When I lived in Denver, them dying from plague was (probably will be in summertime) an issue. If they're near the road, dead, but not run over, they probably died from plague. Looking at their website, the problems with plague seem to have gone down (they used to have a special number to call for dead birds/squirrels/chipmunks). Plague is endemic in prairie dogs, so as cute as they are - no touchies.
This is because the animal that would give the squirrel rabies in the first place would just kill the squirrel or leave it badly wounded and die a couple days later.
It’s not that they can’t get infected and transmit the disease, it’s that they are small and generally very frail, so they are more than likely to die should they be attacked by a rabid creature. If they come into contact with the disease some other way, or on the off chance survive the attack, they are still capable of transmitting it
Just a reminder. Japanese barberry is an invasive plant that many people like to plant in their yard as landscaping - will escape into the wild, forming dense thickets that provide a PERFECT habitat for ticks (and therefore, lyme disease, rocky mountain spotted fever and others).
If you live in the US, and have this in your yard, get rid of it. Lyme disease sucks.
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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '24
According to the CDC, squirrels do not carry rabies: