Rabies warning..upstate N.Y.

Thanks for the info! I passed the word along to my parents. They had mentioned that they had seen a bat flying during the day which gave them a heads up before I even spoke to them.

I just found out 2 dogs have been pts in my town recently from rabies I'm scared for the kids and the furkids..of course mine are vaccinated but still the fear of the what ifs....There is a stay cat running around here too that i'm sure doesn't have shots...and of course no one will take it ...but what if it gets bit and comes around my house?? Ugggh 

 I have seen rabid fox and opposum.  You can tell that they are sick as they are roaming around, confused, during daylight hours.  Very sad and also a bit frightening.  Why we keep cats as indoor pets and love to have fencing.
 
 

Actually the Opossum is a very low risk vector for rabies...by that I mean they "can" carry it...but rarely. Here's a blurb with some numbers and info on transmission...
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"Searching Rabies incident records in a few states, I found that Virginia listed six opossums that tested positive for rabies in the decade 1989-1999, Dr. susan Jenkins, Assist State Epidemiologist, Virginia Department of Health. South Dakota listed one opossum that tested positive for rabies between 1990-2001, SD Public Health Lab and SD Animal Disease Research Lab, 2002. In a document reporting rabies in Bob's home state of Indiana, one incidence of rabies in an opossum occurred since 1962, in 1968."
 
"It is safe to say that while opossums do have a natural resistance to rabies, they can and do sometimes contract the disease. In laboratory induced rabies tests, it has been demonstrated that it requires from 50,000-70,000 times the virus to infect an opossum than it does a canid. Those levels are probably rare in the wild."