Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference

Because of the limited resources of most Latin American countries, an ecological strategy for controlling bovine rabies through elimination of vampire bats is proposed instead of attempting total eradication. The strategy is essentially a combination of one or more of the anticoagulant control techniques applied with knowledge of the epizootiology of vampire rabies. Since rabies outbreaks in vampire bats are migratory, each outbreak is studied to determine the direction and velocity of its course, then an area is selected in its path where vampires are eliminated, forming a barrier and resulting in elimination of the outbreak.