Rabid Bat Found in Pasadena's Civic Center After a Busy Weekend

It's the city's third rabid bat this year, and health officials want anyone there Oct. 9-11 to think back on contact.

A bat found on East Green Street in Pasadena's Civic Center on Sunday, Oct. 11, had rabies, the city's public health department said Friday. It turned up between Marengo and Euclid avenues, at the end of a weekend of events in the district.

Now the department wants three days of visitors to do some remembering. Anyone who spent time in the district from Oct. 9 to 11, at an event or just passing through, is asked to think back on whether that bat got near enough for direct contact. Simply having been there isn't the same as being exposed, the department stressed.

The worry is how little it takes. "Rabies can be transmitted through a bite or even a scratch from the tooth of an infected animal," Dr. Parveen Kaur, the city's health officer, said in the notice. She called the disease life-threatening and said it needs preventive treatment in time. Her advice for a bat on bare skin: soap and water on the spot, right away, then a doctor.

It's Pasadena's third rabid bat this year, and the ask to think back is new. In late August, the year's second turned up by the Brenner Park ball field around 1:30 p.m. on Aug. 27. That time, the city's notice told residents to steer clear of bats and report sick or dead ones. It didn't ask anybody who'd passed through to remember anything.

Friday's notice doesn't say which events brought people to the Civic Center that weekend. The city's own calendar shows that Saturday, Oct. 10, was the day of the 28th annual Latino Heritage Parade and Festival, with the transportation department running a booth tied to it at Centennial Square outside City Hall from 4 to 7 p.m.

So far, the department said, no person has been reported with rabies, and it rates the overall danger to the public as low.

Pets count, too. Owners who think theirs got near the Green Street bat should call an emergency veterinarian, said Manuel Carmona, the city's public health director. And a downed bat, dead or dying, stays where it lies: the city asks people to leave it alone and call Pasadena Humane at (626) 792-7151 to pick it up.

The bat was found Oct. 11, and the notice went out five days later. Anyone who thinks a bat touched them that weekend is already more than a week out. "Anyone who had contact with a bat should speak with their medical provider as soon as possible," Carmona said in the notice.

Source: cityofpasadena.net, retrieved October 19, 2026. Other sources: cityofpasadena.net (2), cityofpasadena.net (3).