Bat rescue in Northern Germany

[eller]

This time, no macabre content whatsoever. I thought, with Halloween coming (and people using cute, innocent bats as spooky decoration - why???) I'd post something positive instead! So this is about rescuing Northern German bats if you find one.



So this is What To Do If You Find A Bat On The Ground.

Bats are not dangerous, they're endangered. And protected. That means you're absolutely forbidden from intentionally harming any kind of bat (and we have several), not that you'd want to. It's also illegal to keep them as pets, although they will nest in houses inhabited by humans, and that's okay. Actually, if a bat nests in a house, many locals will rather make architectural changes to the house to make it more bat-friendly (!) than try to remove it. No matter how hard that can be on the curtains and carpets. They're rare and really really protected (and totally harmless and cute) and most locals are aware of that. So, don't panic if you encounter a bat. (And don't take photos if you have a camera that makes high beeping noises. They really hate that!)

First thing: a bat on the ground, here, is most likely not ill. I mean, yeah, it's not impossible it has rabies, but around here it's fairly unlikely*. You're far more likely to contract rabies from petting a dog, if some irresponsible dog owner "adopted" a dog from Eastern Europe that has never had any shots**. Don't pet random dogs of other people, statistically they're much more likely to have rabies - and interesting parasites - than our carefully managed wildlife... Still, if you try to pick up a bat, always use a towel. That's as much for your own protection (from any illness the animal might have) as for the bat's (to avoid injuries). Also, possibly, it will try to bite you. (This is actually a good sign: if it has the energy left to try and bite you, it's healthy enough it can probably be saved!) And anyway, you're probably smart enough not to touch any wild animal with your bare hands. (Common sense: don't interact with wild animals more than strictly necessary. Don't pet them. Don't eat them, either. Zoonosis is a thing. You don't want to exchange bacteria, viruses or parasites with a bat.)

So the good news is, if you encounter a bat, you're not in any danger. Local bats are not aggressive. They don't attack humans, ever. If you encounter one in your living room, and it's flitting around wildly, it's neither being aggressive nor panicky. It's measuring the room with that weird echosound thingy that bats have. Moving around helps them get a 3D image of their surroundings. It's definitely not attacking, even when it ends up sitting or shitting, yikes on your head. Don't scream. Don't try to hit it with a broom. Just open the window and wait until it's out again. After that, keep the window closed for several days, just in case it was measuring the room for its use as a winter quarter. If you allow a bat to hibernate in your living room, you can write off the curtains and carpet at the very least. (The local laundries will not accept anything that smells of bat guano. They'll in fact be extremely offended if you even try to offload anything that's been in contact with bat guano. Don't ask how I happen to know that.) You'll have to burn everything. Also, you won't have the use of your living room until spring. Only very few people love bats quite that much... Or call an expert to remove it. Don't try to chase it out; you don't want to hurt it in the process after all. You just want to keep your living room furnishings intact.

If you find a bat on the ground that's not happily flying around, it's probably in some kind of trouble. If it's a grown animal, it probably had to land because it's tired and didn't have enough energy left to reach its home. That happens if it has been chased by, say, an owl. (Check for visible injuries.) Or, in winter, it had to leave its hibernation quarter for some reason and didn't find a new one in time. (That can happen if someone inconveniently decided to renovate their attic in winter, and dislodged some poor hibernating bat in the process. Also, unfortunately, some bats think that chimneys are a nice quiet place to rest - and then inconvenient smoke chases them off.) If you find a bat on the ground or hanging on a house wall during the day it definitely needs your help! You can offer it some water with a dropper (but please make very very sure not to get any water inside its nostrils!) or, ideally, a wet paintbrush.

It's not a good idea to warm it with a bottle or something (not even in winter) - unlike young animals, they don't need the extra warmth, and it can even be harmful to them. Remember: the local bats in Northern Germany hibernate. Warming them up too much does horrible things to their biorhythm, and makes them spend more energy they can afford to spend, so please ONLY interrupt their hibernation by warming if they're in need of immediate medical care that takes precedence. (Which is probably the case if there are visible injuries. But please contact an expert before you make that kind of call! Interrupting the slowed-down hibernation metabolism is a very serious decision.) If you happen to find a bat in a snow drift, it probably also needs warming up hibernation or no, but honestly, I have no idea how to handle that situation.

Put it in a box with enough air supply and keep it dark and with high air humidity. (The wings and ears, with their large surface area, easily dry out, so the humidity thing is important. A damp towel or bowl of water near the box helps. Do not put a bowl of water inside the box, you don't want to risk drowning.) Bring the animal to an expert ASAP. (Taking care of bats is difficult and best left to bat experts. There are emergency bat hotlines in most German federal states. Find out the number and call them. Did I mention how these animals are really really protected? Yeah.) This also applies if the bat soon starts moving around again and seems perfectly healthy. If you just release it again, its problem - the lack of an appropriate hibernation quarter - is still unsolved. Extensively searching for a new one will cost the bat energy it doesn't have. It will need human help through the winter.

Most likely, however, the bat you find on the ground is a young animal. In which case the mother will come back and look for it as soon as it's dark! What you have to know here is that bats transport their kids by carrying them through the air while the baby holds on to its mother. Occasionally (if, say, mommy bat is chased by an owl and has to fly evading maneuvers) a baby falls off. Fortunately it's most likely not injured (it has very light bones, and wings to slow the fall down with, so it's unlikely to break anything!) and just needs to survive until the next nightfall, when, about half an hour after sundown, it's picked up again. In most cases, that goes just fine.

DO NOT REMOVE THE YOUNG ANIMAL FROM THE PREMISES. I know there's the temptation to pick it up and take it to a vet clinic to be checked out, but really, there's no immediate need. Baby bat is most likely perfectly healthy, but it's definitely calling for its mom (you won't hear that, they hear and emit frequencies humans can't perceive, but yep, they scream a lot really) and mommy bat will be calling for the baby, too, and you want them to find each other again. Which means that at the very least after sundown, baby bat has to be in the general vicinity of where mommy bat lost it. (Bats are smart, they remember that kind of thing!) Possibly, if it's cold outside, you might have to take baby bat inside during the day to keep it warm - but it really really has to be outside, and exactly where you found it, after dark.

Baby bats are usually warmed by their mother, so when mommy bat is not there, it needs warmth during the wait. The accepted method is to fill a bottle with warm (not hot - about 40°C is accepted as good) water, cover it with a fluffy sock (so baby bat has a good hold and doesn't fall off), put baby bat on that, and... wait. In, like, 90% of the cases, mommy bat will come after sundown and pick baby bat up. Really. Bats are not stupid. They're mammals. They care for their young. A bat mother will look for her baby. Sometimes even several nights after she lost it.

The only case in which mommy bat doesn't show up is if something bad has happened to her - in which case, unfortunately, you'll have to bring baby bat to an expert. Bringing up young bats on your own is impossible. It's also illegal (for good reason) to even try. Even in the hand of experts - people who have studied and worked with bats all their life - not all young bats survive. So that's really a last resort though of course better than doing nothing at all. Please, try to reunite baby bat with mommy bat first! In fact, if you know where baby bat came from (that is, know the exact location of the nesting place... which, if nearby, is easily detected by, uh, stench smell) it's best to just put it back up there. This site shows possible hiding places of bats in a human building. They also show what the "tower" of water bottle covered in sock is supposed to look like. And how to recognise bat droppings. I wonder why they don't mention the f***ing smell.

You can also try to give baby bat some water with a wet paintbrush (that's safest, really - they suck the liquid out without anything getting in their nostrils). It's most likely too young to be fed insects, so don't try. (And if it's old enough, it will safely manage one day without starving.)

When in doubt: always find out the local bat emergency hotline, they'll help you, advise you or send an expert! (Note to Americans: no, that won't cost you money. In the unlikely case the bat actually needs medical treatment, you will not have to pay vet bills, either, if you hand the animal first to an expert who then hands the animal to a vet in some kind of official capacity. If you hand a wild animal to a vet directly, they'll try to slap you, as the ordering party, with bills although the legal situation is not entirely clear - they have to provide "first aid" for wild animals for free, but of course they'll argue about what's (free) first aid and what's (not free) further treatment. Depending on where exactly you are, there are organizations that cover vet costs caused by wild animals. Also, vets have to provide first aid to wildlife even if they grumble about it. If anyone tries to refuse, threaten to sue them. This is one of the very few instances where that's actually going to work in Germany. Most likely, though, you won't want to call a vet anyway (unless the bat has physical injuries). Remember, the bat is healthy, and most likely its only problem is the loss of its hibernation quarter. Which is something a vet can not solve anyway. Here's a list of who to call in bat-related emergencies. You'll have to alarm someone, anyway - otherwise, technically, legally you're guilty of wildlife poaching as soon as you take a wild animal from its natural habitat. (Although I doubt people are very keen to enforce that when an animal is picked up with the good intention of helping it.) You can even call the police. They'll be annoyed at the disturbance and tell you to f*** off, but at least it will be documented, and afterwards no one can ever accuse you of trying to steal a protected species. So yeah, if you have to take a bat (or any other wild animal, really) home, call the cops to be on the safe side.

*In Germany, animal epidemics are surveilled by an institute called the Friedrich-Löffler-Institut. If a sick wild animal is found, they get a notification for their statistics. From 1977 to 2018, they report 318 cases of bats having bat rabies (that are actually a slightly different illness from other rabies, although the normal shots against rabies will help in the unlikely case a human is bitten). And no, I repeat, zero cases of death-by-infected-bat-bite. It's not a thing around these parts. I know of a few cases of bites from healthy bats - all during attempts to pick them up with bare hands which is stupid, and the bites well-deserved if you ask me. You're not in any danger. Really. Simply go and get shots after anything, really anything (pet or wild animal, doesn't matter!) bites you, just on principle. Dear US friends, remember, you're in Germany - seeing a doctor will not ruin you (and three generations of descendants after you) financially. Even if you don't have insurance. Generally, medical bills are a lot lower than you'd expect from home. Bats are, however, quite safe. Unless they show really weird behavior, move in circles, attack random objects on the ground and/or show signs of (partial) paralysis, in which case, yes, they probably have rabies. If they sit there more or less quietly, maybe try to move away when you approach, and only try to bite you (or rather your towel) when you pick them up, they're healthy. If it's winter and the bat seems a bit "groggy" and unaware of its surroundings, well, its hibernation was just rudely interrupted, so that's also probably healthy though it's best to ask an expert.
**You have to be aware that around here, there's a popular scam going on with Romanian street dogs that are available for adoption by elderly German ladies well-meaning animal lovers who want to give a street dog a better life. And to make things complicated, there are perfectly legitimate organizations who help street dogs in Eastern Europe and who do great work. However, unfortunately, there are also criminals who simply breed dogs for the purpose (because that's so much easier than catching half-wild dogs off the streets) and use them to scam money - for brokering, for shots the animals never receive, for "de-worming" (that also doesn't happen), for paperwork, for the transport, and so on. Some people get a ton of money, and some people get very sick dogs that, with their saliva and excrements, infect other animals and also, tragically, propose the currently largest threat to our local wildlife... You get the point. Also, do not pet a stranger's dog. Or let your own dog run wild without a leash. Like, not ever. Really.

Comments

[eller]

Here up north, that's definitely the wrong way to go, because, like, 99% of grown bats found on the ground are in trouble because they lost their hibernation quarter somehow. (Basically, you only find grown bats in winter.) That means if you just put the bat in a tree, even if it has the energy left to fly off (which is pretty unlikely because their metabolism shuts down in winter) it will likely freeze because it will not immediately find a new suitable place within one night. :/ They'll either just end up on the ground again or crawl into some place that's less than optimal. (Before hibernation, they spend several weeks scouting for a good place - so when that's suddenly gone, the poor bat is f*ed.) It might be a good suggestion to deal with non-hibernating bats, though.