English Nature is considering making all its staff who work with bats have a rabies vaccination, following the first British death in a century from being bitten by one of the animals.

Scottish Natural Heritage suspended all except half a dozen licences to handle bats last week, following news that enthusiast David McRae, 56, had the disease.

"We don't feel a need to suspend licences," said English Heritage yesterday. "But we strongly advise voluntary workers to be inoculated."

Obliging employees to be vaccinated would depend on legal considerations.

Mr McRae, from Guthrie, Angus, died on Sunday from a rare paralytic rabies, a strain of European bat lyssavirus or EBL; though EBL is common in bats on the continent, only three people have died since 1977.

Scottish Heritage is trying to find the colony that included the rabid bat, but Mr McRae had wide exposure as a volunteer and contract worker.

In September a Lancashire woman got EBL, but was treated in time to prevent her getting rabies.

Surveillance in Britain is low: only 200 of up to three million bats are checked each year. The Department for the Environment said more surveillance was difficult because bats were a protected species.