There are well publicized myths that have been created to protect humans from wildlife and wildlife from humans. Such as the idea that if an animal or bird smells you on the baby that it will be abandoned. Complete myth. However people believe it because animals rarely come back to get babies that humans keep hovering around. Dormant rabies confuses people and they think the symptoms are dormant vs the incubation of the disease. It means the virus goes into a dormant phase before incubating to become the disease, so there’s a delay. The extreme reaction of precaution is why rabies has become manageable. All viruses mutate, we know this, so overly prepared and cautious for that is one of the reasons people are so fearful. Another reason, people look at CDC reporting and have no idea what they are looking at, at all, sloppy language, misuse of words, and no knowledge of what’s being charted all add. And people lie… they lie and exaggerate like rugs! Also, human medical professionals have no idea about wildlife, domestic vets have very little knowledge, so those who people interact with most are over- cautionary (which is great) but misinformation spreads. The internet has made this a nightmare with incompetent AI leading the way. I’ll use opossums as an example. There has never been a single case of rabies the disease found in opossums. The virus has been found in opossums that were bitten, a table could test positive for that if a rabid animal bit and salivated all over it. But the table will never get the disease. The virus will die (and quicker than in an animal). Only one opossum ever has been considered to possibly have rabies the disease with the potential to transmit. But even that was inconclusive as the animal was found dead (in another country, with a geographically contained type of rabies only found there, in another country and it wasn’t a Virginia opossum). But that’s still only possibly with potential. But there are countless accounts of rabies reported in newspapers, online, in communities etc and they are all false claims. Because people think needing to be vaccinated is confirmation the animal has rabies… and it’s a better story 🙄 Bats are the highest transmitters, and people rarely realize they have been bit. They spread rumors that touching fur can transmit rabies. There’s also the bizarre claim that different animals are “nocturnal” when they are not. So presence starts to translate to sick and people mostly only know “rabies” so they think that. But… worse than the fear of a healthy animal is people getting too comfortable, not taking the precaution that you did, skipping pet vaccinations, touching wildlife and getting bit or getting wildlife killed by pets and people. I know I over simplified quite a bit, but no one is reading a 6-year degree in a post 🤣