Bats

It's that time of year again when mosquitoes meet their doom as bats all around are giving birth and raising babies. Although we are currently forbidden to rehabilitate bats, due to uncertainty about their transmission of Covid, we are hopeful this will change soon. There are some ways we can still help them. We can put a suffering bat to sleep if it has fractures and can't fly, or is stuck on flypaper. And we can help babies. A baby bat will climb onto mom when it is a neonate, and she flies with it clinging to her. When older and the weight affects her ability to hunt and fly, she will 'park' the baby in a safe place and keep returning to nurse it until it is old enough to fly. Some species have a nursery area where all the babies are placed together. But if a baby that can't fly yet falls to the ground, mom wont be able to get airborne again if it climbs onto her, due to the weight. So mom is helpless to save her baby. If you find a baby bat on the ground, we are allowed to use caution and PPE and place the baby back up in a safe spot where mom can come get it. With one such baby who injured himself, he was returned 21 days later, and mom immediately flew down to him; still there and eager to have her baby back. We didn't even have the basket to the eaves of the house he fell from before mom heard him and flew to him. Bats have strong bonds with each other, and they are intelligent and emotional creatures. It was a beautiful sight to see their reunion; she licked his head, clicked to him, and he snuggled up under her. There is always great hope for reuniting these babies provided a couple of things are observed: The bat cannot have been handled without gloves or contact made with human bare skin; like foxes, feral cats, raccoons, and many other animals, bats are a rabies vector. If handled like this, permission for us to reunite it must be given by Environmental Health, and this often takes a great deal of time. Far beyond the amount of time a baby has if alone on the ground with no source of food or fluids. The baby can't get too hot or too cold, or be left out in the open during the day where cats or birds might make a snack of it. It must be covered with breathable, shady protection until we get there. This needs to be of a fashion that the bat cant crawl out from under and disappear. So if you find a baby do this immediately, then give us a call. A Little Brown Bat, one of the smallest of these little insect eaters, can eat over 7,000 mosquitoes in a night. Bats are amazing and so beneficial! We love these creatures and want to help them in any way we can. If you find a grounded baby, or any bat in distress, give us a call. We may not be able to patch them up, but we will help all we can! And please, please refrain from using flypaper or sticky insect traps, or spraying pesticides under your eaves. These are actions that kill many bats each year.