National Bat Conference; 2.

2. Bat rehabilitation – why bother?

Gail Armstrong of the North Lancashire Bat Group gave a presentation at the Conference on care and rehabilitation for bats. She had collated data from years of taking in grounded bats and trying to release them back to the wild. She concluded that statistically it did not appear to make much sense in trying to release the bats. Many of them were cat attacked and were unable to be kept alive let alone nursed back to health. But it wasn’t the small number of bats that were released that was the most important. Very few of her bats were able to be released and the potential impact upon populations is hard to determine, but is likely only to be small. Any help though is better than none.

The biggest impact of taking in grounded bats though seems to be the communication of details about bats to members of the public. The majority of members of the public never come into contact with a bat and many still seem to have the idea that they are some form of rodent that will damage their house and stop them using it if they decide to roost their. But, collecting grounded bats from the public is an ideal time to talk to them about what bats are and how they live. Being able to show someone how small and in offensive a bat is a wonderful piece of bat conservation.

And it’s true. So many times I have collected bats from people who have found a bat in their house or garden and not known what to do. Hopefully, after seeing the bat at first hand and being shown by someone how fascinating bats are they will have a better understanding of why bat conservation is important and how they can help.