A bat found at the front entrance of Bastrop’s Walmart tested positive for rabies on Nov. 9, and the City of Bastrop announced the result on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. Officials are asking anyone who thinks they may have been exposed to contact the city.
According to KXAN Austin, the city identified a potential exposure window running from the moment the store opened until noon that day. Anyone who was in or around the entrance during that stretch and may have had contact with the bat is being urged to contact the city directly.
The city’s guidance doesn’t stop at the Walmart doors. Per the same report, Bastrop officials advised residents never to handle a bat under any circumstances, whether it appears alive, injured, sick, or already dead. People are also being told to keep dogs and cats current on their rabies vaccinations and to teach children to stay away from bats and other unfamiliar wildlife they might encounter outside.
How to Report a Possible Exposure
For residents with questions or their own bat sightings to report, the city has set up a direct line of contact: [email protected]. That inbox is the city’s point of contact for both public questions and new bat reports tied to this case, the station’s report notes.
The Bastrop discovery lands amid a broader stretch of rabies activity across Central Texas in recent weeks. Cedar Park police issued their own alert after a live bat found in a residential area tested positive for the disease, according to KXAN Austin. In that case, police said they did not know whether any people or pets had come into contact with the animal, and they advised anyone who had to seek medical or veterinary care right away.
San Marcos Area Sees a String of Cases
Further south, the San Marcos area logged five confirmed rabies cases in the span of about a week, with the city reporting three cases on Oct. 21 and a fifth the following day, KXAN reported. A separate Oct. 23 account from CBS Austin put the area’s total at five confirmed cases since Oct. 14, with the newly confirmed animals including three foxes and a skunk, plus a bat found in Hays County.
That Hays County bat came with a troubling wrinkle: a child had contact with it after brushing the animal off their clothing and was receiving treatment for the possible exposure, CBS Austin reported. San Marcos was also working to organize a free rabies vaccination clinic for residents, though as of that report, the date, time, and location had not yet been announced.
State health materials note that rabies is enzootic in bats in Texas, meaning the disease is persistently present in bat populations statewide, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. For now, anyone who thinks they may have been exposed should contact the city.
