Most mammals can carry rabies, including those cute little stray kittens someone has rescued from the dumpster and is on the front page of reddit.

Bats get blamed, but they're also the second most numerous branch of mammals... so that's a pretty obviously numbers game. 🤷 Emergent diseases are typically out of tropical areas, too... and that's just "welcome to the tropics."

In North America, you're faaaar more likely to get permanently fucked up from a tick bite.

In the current era, Cavers are rarely interacting with bats when they're caving... because it's shitty to disturb wildlife. We know where they roost, and when they roost in given areas-- it's not rocket science. Not all caves have large colonies of bats.

Caving has far fewer injuries than most other "adventure sports," and faaaar fewer fatalities. You know what kills plenty of people? Skiing and scuba diving and whitewater.

Yes, caves can be extremely dangerous to people with zero basic experience (especially the drunk/high ones who only have handheld flashlights). But in my experience, it takes all of a year or so for the average person to become baseline competent at the activity in a recreational capacity.

Slip / trips are the single biggest cause of injuries in caves. We know because we thoroughly document these things in annual accident reports.

(:

Hope that helps clear up things. It's nice to not spread misinformation.