In northwest Cook County, call your village first, not the county.

What does Cook County Animal and Rabies Control do for a village address?

Situation	Who to call
A bite or scratch from a wild animal	Wash it well with soap and water and get medical care right away; IDPH says the health department or county animal control should be told too.9 In Cook County, bites to people are reported to the local police, who fill out a Cook County Bite Report and send it to Animal and Rabies Control. Bite questions: (708) 974-6140.2
A bat in a bedroom, or in a room with a child or someone who was asleep	Don't try to catch it. Cook County's bat sheet says to keep it shut in that room, have your local animal control agency capture it, and call your family doctor about who may have been exposed, plus your vet if a pet was in the room.4 IDPH says not to throw the bat away or damage its head.9 The Cook County Department of Public Health treats this as a possible rabies exposure, and its Communicable Disease Unit helps the public work out whether one happened: 708-836-8699 weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., 708-836-8600 after hours.7
A bat flying loose in the house, and you're sure it touched no one	The county's bat sheet says to close it off from the rest of the house, open a window or door to the outside, keep people and pets out and give it time to leave. If that fails, call local animal control.4 If there's any doubt about contact, call the health department first: IDPH says a bat in the home should be reported so the circumstances can be evaluated.9
A bat on the ground, or a dead bat	Don't touch it. Cover it with a container so no one, pets included, can reach it, and call local animal control to pick it up.4 The county's rabies page sends sick or dead bats to local animal control or the police.3
A wild animal having trouble walking, or acting strangely tame	Bring children and pets inside and call your local police or animal control.9, 1 The county's skunk sheet gives the same advice for a skunk with uncoordinated movements or seizures.5
A skunk stuck in a window well	Keep people and pets away. Cook County suggests slowly easing a rough board into the well as a ramp, no steeper than 45 degrees; the skunk should leave at nightfall. Window well covers keep it from happening again.5
A healthy animal living in your attic, walls, chimney or under the deck	The county's trap loans don't cover incorporated towns; it sends their residents to the local police or animal control.1 When an animal has to be trapped and removed, the county's raccoon and skunk sheets say you'll need a nuisance wildlife control operator, and a homeowner who wants to trap it needs a permit from an IDNR district wildlife biologist first.5, 11 The operator can be this site's advertiser or anyone on the Illinois DNR list, which is sorted by county and names more than 200 permit holders under Cook.10
Your home is in unincorporated Cook County	Animal and Rabies Control handles it directly: a loaned trap for wildlife in the home or attached garage, removal of a bat found inside, and calls about injured wildlife or injured or dead bats outside.1 (708) 974-6140, weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.6
A stray dog or cat	Your local police or animal control.1 Not a wildlife operator.

Cook County Animal and Rabies Control, 10220 S. 76th Ave., Bridgeview: (708) 974-6140.⁶

The Wildlife Line isn't part of Cook County or any village government.

Five villages, three counties: which numbers apply?

Cook County is only part of the picture in some of these villages. The Census Bureau's files put them in these counties:¹²

• Schaumburg: Cook and DuPage, but the Census Bureau counts all of its residents in the Cook part.
• Hoffman Estates: Cook and Kane, with all residents counted in the Cook part.
• Streamwood: Cook only.
• Hanover Park: Cook and DuPage, with about 20,100 residents on the Cook side and 17,400 on the DuPage side.
• Bartlett: Cook, DuPage and Kane. About 23,800 residents live in the DuPage part, 17,200 in the Cook part and fewer than 100 in Kane.

On the DuPage or Kane side, that county's health and animal agencies take bite and bat reports, and each town page lists them. For the Cook parts, the Cook County Department of Public Health is the local health department: its list of suburbs served includes all five villages and Elgin.⁸

How often do rabid bats turn up in Cook County?

Cook County Animal and Rabies Control puts the yearly average at roughly 25 rabid bats found in the county, and it posts where they turned up.³ Its 2026 list includes a bat found Sept. 2 in Hoffman Estates, and its 2019 list includes one in Bartlett.³ The department sends more than 400 animal specimens a year to the state laboratory for rabies testing.⁶ Most bats aren't infected: the county cites CDC figures that only about 6% of weak or sick bats captured in the U.S. test positive.³

That average is the county's own figure, and its page doesn't say which years it covers. The state's map shows 20 to 27 a year for the whole county, city included, from 2015 through 2018, then 14 or fewer a year from 2019 through 2026 so far. The county's own posted lists also show 13 or fewer a year since 2019.^{3, 13}

Year	Suburban Cook County	All of Illinois
2026 to Oct. 21	13	76
2025	5	48
2024	8	57
2023	6	83
2022	11	61
2021	3	40

The state counts the county's largest city on its own line, so it's left out of this column. This column also doesn't cover the DuPage parts of Bartlett and Hanover Park; the state lists DuPage County on its own line, at 14 through Oct. 21, 2026.¹³

These are bats people found and turned in for testing that came back positive, so the count doesn't tell you how many rabid bats are around here.¹⁵ The table doesn't show how many were tested, but the state's year-end summary does for all of Illinois: 48 of the 1,601 bats tested in 2025 were positive, about 3 percent.¹⁴ An Illinois Natural History Survey mammalogist calls bats turned in for testing "a biased sample" and says fewer than 1 percent of bats in the wild are thought to test positive.¹⁵

In September, with 61 positives on the state's map, the state said bat submissions and rabies calls were higher than normal for the time of year, but that the numbers weren't alarming.¹⁶ The state also says rabid bats can be found anywhere in Illinois, that only a lab test can tell, and that a bat in a home or any contact with one should be reported to the local health department.⁹

Attics are a favorite roost. Bats use gaps that are already there rather than making their own, such as narrow openings around chimneys, loose siding and the joints where dormers meet the roof.⁴ For a colony, read bats in the house; for a single bat late in the evening, after-hours help.

Raccoons and skunks: what the county's fact sheets advise

Wildlife Illinois says fall counts of 98 to 101 raccoons per square mile have been recorded in parts of Cook, Kane and McHenry counties, against a more common 9 to 45 across the state.¹¹ Cook County's raccoon sheet says raccoons shelter or raise young in chimneys, attics, garages, sheds and the space under decks and porches, and move into protected spots such as attics in fall for the winter.⁵ Its advice: a heavy-duty chimney cap on every chimney, branches trimmed back from the roof, and garbage in metal or tough plastic cans with lids that fasten.⁵ Skunks den under slabs, porches, crawl spaces and sheds; for one living in a garage or shed, the county suggests leaving the door open before dusk so it can get out.⁵

• Raccoon in the chimney
• Animal under the deck
• Squirrels in the attic
• Noises in the attic at night

Which northwest Cook towns does this guide cover?

• Schaumburg: the village says to dial 311 or 911 for wildlife inside the living space, but it doesn't trap.
• Hoffman Estates: village police step in at a home only when a wild animal is an immediate threat to someone.
• Streamwood: ground feeding of wild animals is banned under village code.
• Hanover Park (Cook part): police don't take wild animal complaints on private property, but the desk keeps a list of removal services.
• Bartlett (Cook part): the village allows at most four bird feeders, hung at least 4 feet off the ground.
• Elgin (Cook part; most of the city is in Kane County): the city runs its own animal control through the police department.

Questions people ask

Sources for this page

1. Cook County Department of Animal and Rabies Control, Services for Unincorporated Areas. Checked Oct 29, 2026.
2. Cook County Department of Animal and Rabies Control, Animal Bite Investigation. Checked Oct 29, 2026.
3. Cook County Department of Animal and Rabies Control, Rabies Prevention (includes its list of rabid bats by year). Checked Oct 29, 2026.
4. Cook County Department of Animal and Rabies Control, Information on Bats (PDF). Checked Oct 29, 2026.
5. Cook County Department of Animal and Rabies Control, Information on Raccoon (PDF) and Information on Skunk (PDF). Checked Oct 29, 2026.
6. Cook County Department of Animal and Rabies Control, main office and hours and Wildlife Surveillance. Checked Oct 29, 2026.
7. Cook County Department of Public Health, Rabies. Checked Oct 29, 2026.
8. Cook County Department of Public Health, Suburbs Served (updated July 7, 2026). Checked Oct 29, 2026.
9. Illinois Department of Public Health, Rabies (animal bites; bats in a sleeping area; animals acting abnormally). Checked Oct 29, 2026.
10. Illinois Department of Natural Resources, 2026–2027 Class A Nuisance Wildlife Control Operators (PDF). Checked Oct 29, 2026.
11. Wildlife Illinois, Raccoon. Checked Oct 29, 2026.
12. U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 place-by-county file for Illinois and Vintage 2024 population estimates for Illinois places (April 1, 2020 estimates base, by county part). Checked Oct 29, 2026.
13. Illinois Department of Public Health, Rabies Surveillance Map, updated Oct. 21, 2026; the map's own bat totals for 2024 and 2025 are lower than the summary below, at 56 and 42. Checked Nov 2, 2026.
14. Illinois Department of Public Health, Animal Rabies Surveillance Summary for 2025 (PDF), June 17, 2026, source of the Illinois totals for 2021 to 2025. Checked Nov 2, 2026.
15. The Daily Illini, Oct. 8, 2026. Checked Nov 2, 2026.
16. NBC 5, Sept. 16, 2026. Checked Nov 2, 2026.

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