Friday, May 27, 2011

Little Brown Bat?

The other day as my daughter was about to hang laundry on the outside line she noticed something on the quilt that was already hanging. She thought it was a leaf and was about to remove it when she realized it was a bat! Excited ,she ran to tell me. I, unfortunately, was sure it was a mistake.



¨How could a bat be on my quilt ? The line is only 5.5 feet high, and it is in the sun. Don´t bats sleep in the shade or hide? ¨ were just some of the thoughts in my mind.

My entourage of children and I approached very slowly the brown apparition. WOW! It is a bat!! It could not be but three to four inches long, lying in the head down position and yet still clinging to the quilt by it´s feet. Is it a baby? Why?Why? Why? As many questions filled the air as fast as all of us could form them. This velvety brown little bat was sound asleep and did not move while we studied him, except to toss a bit like we do when we sleep. I assumed it was a lost baby. It was right in the sun, I worried just that would hurt it.

The kids and I talked about that Nature is sometimes hard and we see things die, we see it with baby birds lost in spring. So with this in mind we left the bat alone to see what course Nature would take.

Our friend , age 11, came by and when we showed him the treasure on our clothes line his question was ¨ Why do you guys get a Bat?!¨  ! As though we ¨were given ¨ this wild creature, we of course told him it was merely resting or abandoned and just got a blessing to see it. A kid´s mind is a beautiful thing!

An hour or so later, I got the idea to search Bat Rescue. I knew about conservation efforts but would there be a rescue? Lo and behold there was a few hits AND someone in my state. I called and got more numbers and called them. No one was close by. I was told my bat may be a Little Brown Bat. So, I did more research on my own.

Bats, like honeybees, have a disease that is decimating populations. Like honeybees, we cannot survive without the bat. Less than one half of one percent of bats have rabies. We also have misconceptions about the bat that are hard to get rid of......
No subject has generated more misinformation and fear about bats than rabies. So let's look at the facts. Worldwide, more than 55,000 people are estimated to die of rabies each year (World Health Organization), primarily from contacts with rabid dogs. In industrialized countries, most dogs and cats are now vaccinated against rabies, and the disease is rare in humans and usually results from contact with rabid wildlife, particularly bats. In the United States from 1995 through 2009, an average of two people per year have died of rabies associated with bats.

With proper education, the presence of bats does not pose public health conflicts. For example, approximately 1½ million Mexican free-tailed bats live under the Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin, Texas. A well-publicized tourist attraction, the bridge bats attract tens of thousands of people each summer to watch the bats emerge in the evenings on their nightly insect hunts. No human case of bat-transmitted rabies has ever been recorded in Austin or surrounding communities.   

From Bat Conservation International

I found that if you find a bat give it 24 hrs to see if it will recover on its own. At    Batworld.org      , they give a warning......

Do NOT handle the bat with bare hands and do not
attempt to rehabilitate the bat on your own. To do so could
jeopardize your safely as well as the life of the bat.



Fair and reasonable, a bat is a wild animal and should be treated with the same respect as any wild animal.

Our bat was not there in the morning, YEAH! This means that unless something ate it, he is not hurt nor abandoned. He is out there in my night sky eating up all those bugs that bite us or make us uncomfortable. Go, Bat, go!



Bats eat the insects that bother us and pollinate the beauty around us. We need to protect the things that give us rest( from too many mosquitoes) and give us food. The following is also from Bat Conservation Intn´l. on some ways we can help the bats.

Know what my bat is? Tell us!

Have a bat story? What do you do for Eden?

Facts on the Fly!
THINGS YOU CAN DO TO PROMOTE BAT CONSERVATION
You don’t need to travel far or have a degree in biology to help bats. You can make a difference for bat conservation by
working on local projects. Every community has unique needs. These suggestions may apply to the bats where you live.
Much more information and downloadable publications are available at BCI’s website: www.batcon.org.
Things EVERYONE can do for bats:
After centuries of myths and misunderstandings, bats have
acquired a poor public image. You can help counter these myths
by raising public awareness about bats in your community.
Because bats are mammals, they are susceptible to the rabies
virus, making sick individuals a possible risk to people who
know little about them. Due to fears that are often greatly exaggerated, many bats are needlessly killed. You can help save bats
from misguided persecution by:
• Joining Bat Conservation International and obtaining
the most up-to-date information about bats and bat
conservation. To join, visit www.batcon.org.
• Giving bat lectures to local schools, nature centers, zoos,
museums or libraries. Presentations and videos are available through BCI’s catalog.
• Donating books and other educational materials about
bats to local libraries, resource centers or schools.
• Writing a positive article about bats for your local news-
paper (especially for Halloween).
• Helping people safely remove stray bats from living
quarters. This can be done easily by covering the bat
with a coffee can when it lands and slipping a piece of
cardboard between the wall and the can. Then the bat
can be released outside. Do not attempt to handle bats
without gloves, as they may bite in self-defense.
• Answering questions or directing people to BCI during
public health scares.
• Educating local pest-control operators about humane
exclusion techniques. Exclusion is the only effective way
to remove a nuisance colony of bats from a building.
Poisons, naphthalene flakes and harmless repellant
devices do not deter bats and may actually harm
humans.
• Providing facts about bats and rabies to local health
departments, veterinarians and personal physicians. To
obtain detailed information about bats and public health
issues, visithttp://www.batcon.org/
• Installing a bat house as part of an exclusion project or
just to bring bats into your backyard. BCI’s website
provides designs and detailed instructions for building
and installing bat houses. You can also order a ready-
made bat house, the Bat House Builder’s Handbook or the
Building Homes for Bats DVD from BCI’s online catalog.
• Learning more about the bats in your state by visiting
the ‘Species Profiles’ section of www.batcon.org.
• Volunteering to advocate for bats in your community.
Things TEACHERS and STUDENTS can do for bats:
Bats rank among the world’s most diverse and fascinating mammals, yet few people know anything about them. People must
first understand bats before they can really care about their survival
. You can increase bat awareness by:
• Teaching a unit on bats. Exciting curricula aids are
available through BCI.
• Learning more about the bats in your state by visiting
the ‘Species Profiles’ section of www.batcon.org.
• Researching specific bat-related topics. Archived issues
of BATS magazine issues can be found at
www.batcon.org.
• Organizing a bat-appreciation day at your school and
educating other students about the importance of bats.
• Promoting the “Look, but do NOT touch” approach of
respecting wild animals.
• Adopt-A-Bat for the classroom. Students can take part
in conservation efforts, learn about a bat species of their
choice and receive a certificate and photo of the bat.
Things LANDOWNERS can do for bats:
Bats are losing their natural habitats around the world because
of increasing land development, agriculture and deforestation. In
many cases, bats can adapt to such changes if their needs for
water, insect prey and roosts are taken into consideration. To
mitigate the loss of natural roosts, many people also now provide
bats with alternative roosts, such as bat houses. All this and more
is available online at www.batcon.org. You can help by:
• Planting or preserving native vegetation that attracts
and supports a diversity of non-pest insects for bats to
feed on.
• Decreasing disturbance and destruction of cave and
abandoned-mine roosts via education, fencing or gating.
• Protecting roosting bats in abandoned buildings or pro-
viding artificial alternatives when such buildings must be
torn down. BCI can provide suggestions for construction of artificial roosts.
• Leaving snags in forests and woodlands to serve as natural homes for wildlife. Bats often roost in tree hollows,
under loose bark and in old snags, which are frequently
removed.
• Supplying open water resources where bats can drink
on the wing. Even a pool just ten feet by five feet can be
a big help to bats in need of a drink if the approaches
are not obstructed by vegetation.
• Constructing and installing a bat house. BCI’s
website provides designs and detailed instructions for
building and installing bat houses. You can also order a
ready-made bat house, the Bat House Builder’s Hand-
book or the Building Homes for Bats DVD from our
online catalog.
• Modifying a bridge to serve as a home for bats by work-
ing with your local highway department.
Join Bat Conservation International – Our members and donors make our conservation successes possible.
Bat Conservation International is a nonprofit organization dedicated to conservation, education and research initiatives
involving bats and the ecosystems they serve. For more information visit: www.batcon.org
©Bat Conservation International • P.O. Box 162603 • Austin, TX 78716 • USA • (512) 327-9721

http://www.batworld.org/

http://www.batrescue.org/

http://www.batworld.org/teachers-page/

3 comments:

  1. What a great story! I'm glad it all worked out well :) Nature is fascinating when it is up close like that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! It was a beautiful experience for all of us.

    ReplyDelete
  3. [...] we had a Little Brown Bat visit us.Read about it here. It was exciting to be able to see such a sight in the daylight! Nature, WOW! WP_SLIDESHOW_IMAGES [...]

    ReplyDelete

Impressions from friends, thanks.