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Vampires kill 23 in Brazil, deforestation blamed mongabay.com November 7, 2005 Rabid vampire bats killed 23 people and attacked more than 1,000 Brazilian officials confirmed last week. The bats have been displaced from their normal rain forest environment by worsening deforestation in the region. In an attempt to slow deaths, health agencies have treated 1,350 people with anti-rabies medication in the past two months. Rabies, a viral disease that affects the central nervous system by causing acute encephalitis, is almost invariably fatal once symptoms have developed, usually within days of exposure. The disease can be treated with a vaccine if administered prior to the onset of symptoms. While vampire bats are well-known carriers of rabies, other warm-blooded mammals -- including dogs, cats, ferrets, raccoons, skunks, and foxes -- can become rabid. The disease is generally spread between animals and humans by bites. Vampire bats are found across Latin America from Mexico to Argentina and Chile and feed on the blood of warm-blooded animals such as birds, horses, cattle, and, from time to time, humans. Man has inadvertently increased vampire bat populations by the introduction of livestock, mostly cattle, into formerly forested lands. Vampires, which are only active in the darkest hours of the night in order to avoid predators, feed by using their chisel-like incisor teeth to make a small incision in the skin of its prey. The bats lap blood that flows freely from the wound due to an anticoagulant, which incidentally, has been chemically isolated to create a drug for treating heart attack victims. Animals fed upon by vampires are rarely injured or killed by the feeding unless of course the bats are rabid.
Para is currently in the midst of the most severe drought in memory. Low water levels in the Amazon has forced Brazil to declare a state of emergency across much of the region. This news item used information from The Scottsman and the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
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Deforestation in the Amazon. 
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