00:14
Kathy
What comes to mind when you hear the word “bats”? Do you automatically think about Hollywood horror movies or are you reminded of the important role these flying mammals play in our eco-system?
Hi. I’m Kathy Mueller. Host of Wild About Wildlife. A podcast that takes you behind the scenes at Salthaven Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Centre.
In this episode I sit down with two volunteer members of Salthaven’s Bat Squad. Kathie Baer and Megan Clark help dispel the bad rap bats get and explain why we should all be installing bat boxes and encouraging them to live in our communities.
Let’s get started!
1:09
Kathy
Thank you Kathie and Megan for joining me today I think a good place to start, before we get into the whole bat thing, let's learn a little bit about you guys as members of the bat squad. What's your background? How did you get involved in the bat squad? Let's start with you Kathy.
01:30
Kathie
Okay, so I have been involved with the bat squad for over ten years now prior to it actually being considered about a bat squad. And I actually got started with bats more as a matter of convenience I think than anything else. One of our other volunteers was looking for someone to give her a hand one day with the bats and since I was actually able to handle bats I got asked to do it and it's just I fell in love with bats pretty much right there and then and so I have been working with them since then.
2:02
Kathy
And did you have any history working with bats prior to coming to Salthaven?
2:07
Kathie
No, other than you know, living at a farm and seeing them flying around I you know I was a little bit nervous of working with them so it took a little bit of time to get comfortable with them.
2:18
Kathy
Megan how about you? How long have you been involved? When did you get involved?
2:24
Megan
I started with the bat squad in 2019 so I'm going into my fifth season with them. And I had originally been a volunteer in the clinic. And one of the bat squad volunteers had talked about the bat squad and you know at that time they were in need of some volunteers. I had seen a bat just kind of at a glance when I'd gone into one of the trailers and it just it caught my curiosity and at the end of our regular clinic season I just I felt I didn't want it to end. I wanted to continue and so the bat squad as we know goes throughout the winter and the spring. And it was something I jumped on board with. I got my vaccination and like Kathie I was a little bit nervous to handle them but more so because they're just so small. They're fragile. They're not as fragile as maybe we think they are but they're definitely different than handling other animals that we see in the clinic.
3:16
Kathy
And so, what does the bat squad do?
3:18
Megan
We rehabilitate bats. We take them in from anywhere from late October, early November. Sometimes our season starts in December but it goes all the way up until May and June. We take them in. We basically just provide them a nice, warm, cozy, safe environment. We feed them. We check on their health and prepare them for release in the spring.
03:47
Kathy
And Kathie what are some of the reasons why the bats are coming to Salthaven in the first place?
03:52
Kathie
So, there's a variety of reasons. Throughout the summer we will get the odd phone call for bats. It's not very often, tends to be at that point that they're rather sick or they have some sort of injury. But in the fall and winter a lot of times what's happened is they just weren't able to get into a safe location either for their hibernation or you know we do have some bats in Ontario that are a migratory species and maybe they didn't make their migration on time and these are the ones that you know once our winter shows up, there's no food for the bats to eat and the temperatures are too cold so we need to find, as Megan said, somewhere to put them.
04:36
Kathy
Migratory bats and then there are non-migratory bats here in Ontario and they can withstand our winters? Or what happens to the ones who are used to being here in Ontario through the winter? Do they basically just hunker down and hibernate or what do they do?
04:55
Kathie
That's basically an accurate representation for most of the species that we have staying in Ontario. They are considered crevice dwelling bats. So, you know they will be hunkering down in a winter roost. You know whether that's in a building or in crevices like rock crevices. Caves are another place that they go so they are able to withstand those lower temperatures. They tend to be in groups. There's clustering. So, their temperatures they don't get to a point where they freeze to death but their temperatures do get quite low and I think if, and Megan correct me, I believe they can get their temperatures down to about 4 degrees in their core and still survive that winter.
05:38
Megan
Yeah, definitely they also have the ability to lower their heart rate, lower their breathing. So, it's not that their body stops functioning. It just stops functioning at such a high rate so that they are able to use those fat reserves that they've built up over their summer season rely on them during their torpor.
6:01
Kathy
That was going to be my next question. What did they survive on? Obviously if they, if they're existing at a much lower level, they're not going to need the same kind of food that they would during their active season but they still need some sort of nourishment and are they solely relying then on their fat reserves?
06:22
Megan
Yes, they fatten up quite well before they're the beginning of their torpor season. And to add to what Kathie said before, I think sometimes the reason we see them is because they didn't fatten up enough. And during their torpor they do often wake up, you know every 3 to 4 weeks they'll wake up and move around depending you know how warm it is in their in their roost and when they do wake up they burn some of those fat reserves faster than when they're actually hibernating. And if they didn't gain enough weight in the beginning of their season they will lose that weight a lot quicker and sometimes that's also why we'll find them in care.
7:01
Kathy
And what sort of bats do you get?
07:03
Kathie
There are 8 species in Ontario.We generally see about 5 of those 8 so you know the most common bat that we have in care is the big brown bat but we have seen a hoary bat, silver haired bats. A little brown bat.
07:22
Megan
You had that very cute red eastern bat with her pups the one season, Eastern Red sorry.
07:27
Kathie
Oh yes, the Eastern Red those are another one. Beautiful. They're really, I mean for people who don't really understand bats, they are absolute gorgeous bats.
07:37
Kathy
Ok, so you mentioned the big brown bat and to me that's a little bit of a misnomer that like it seems like it's incorrectly named because they're actually tiny. They're, well correct me if I'm wrong, but are they the ones that typically end up flying around in people's houses?
7:57
Megan
Yes, and I believe the big brown bat is it the second largest bat I believe ahead of the big brown bat for size is the hoary bat if I'm correct. So yeah, they aren't very big but for the bat, the micro bats they are bigger.
08:12
Kathie
One of the things that people have is a misconception in their head is that we're looking at what we see in other countries. You know the flying foxes, the fruit bats you know, larger bats but these are, in Ontario we have what as Megan was saying aren’t considered micro bats.
08:27
Right, so Let's talk a little bit about you know the bad rap that bats get, probably the different horror movies and that don't help. But there seems to be a lot of misperceptions about bats in general. People like, you probably get raised eyebrows when you say oh yeah, you volunteer and look after bats like it would be the last thing that a lot of people would want to be doing.
8:58
Kathie
Megan probably hears a little bit more of the stories about this. But I think one of the biggest ones that we hear is that they worry that the bats are going to fly into their hair. And you know the truth is the bat wants to be nowhere near you. Horror movies, yeah are the biggest reason but even some of the ads that we've seen in the past or some media posts where they really do kind of make them sound like..
09:26
Megan
They kind of villainize them. It's a bit of a shame when you see that in movies you know like Bram Stokers’ Dracula you know they you know a lot of people will ask me, what do the bats eat and when I say you know in Canada here they're eating bugs and you know in some other countries, they're eating fruit. You know there is a very small population that do drink blood but it's very minimal and so people are quite surprised when they hear that the bats are eating bugs. They really do think that, oh they're blood suckers and that's why they have that misperception that they're you know they're trying to attack me and they're trying to get in my hair. It's really like Kathie said, they want nothing to do with us. You know, like most wildlife they do not want to be around us. They don't want to be handled. They much refer to live their own bat life you know free from humans.
10:20
Kathy
And I think part of it might have to do with just the way that they fly right? It seems to be very erratic. And they do they swoop down, they'll come close. That could that could scare a lot of people right?
10:35
Kathie
Definitely you got the acrobatics. The aerial acrobatics down quite well and the one thing that we really enjoy is we have in the past year we had built a new flight pen for our bats which was a huge achievement I think for us at Salthaven and it's a 10 foot by 20 foot enclosure and we are allowed to get the bats flying in there and you really do get to see a lot of that erratic flight is trying to swoop after bugs. Bugs do not tend to fly in straight lines either and the bats really are going after that so it's pretty impressive to watch them.
11:17
Kathy
Talking about this flight pen when the bats are at Salthaven then do they go into this hibernation-like state as well is that what you try and mimic but in a controlled setting or are they active throughout the winter?
11:35
Megan
Currently, we're not torporing our bats. We are in need of some equipment to do so. Right now they basically they come in, they live in rather large enclosures together so that they're not alone. And they spend their whole winter in those enclosures. Come spring when the weather starts to be favourable for them, we will put them out in the flight pen to kind of condition them because much the same as humans if we sat on the sofa all winter and then we wanted to just immediately go for a run, we're going to struggle. So same for the bats. If they've been in an enclosure awake, they do have some muscle atrophy and it's kind of understandable that if we were just to release them that they might struggle a bit so we do want to put them out in that flight pen, trial them and then condition them based on their presentation and just give them that extra boost before we do release them.
12:28
Kathy
So let's try and put some of those misperceptions to rest. Let's talk about the good that bats do for our environment. I don't know who wants to start us off on that one.
12:41
Kathie
The primary thing that I think people really need to understand about bats is the impact that they have just in local ecology. They eat they can say as much as their weight in insects in an evening which is huge I mean none of us can do that. But if you think about the impact you know we have diseases like west nile virus things like that if the mosquitoes are out there, if the bats are going after those, they're bringing down those populations, reducing the risks of that. There's a lot of documentation out there really recording the good that bats do even for crop control for insects. They do eat a lot of beetles that affect a lot of our crops. You cannot underestimate the good that they do.
13:27
Megan
In Canada the main, great reason to have bats is for pest control. I know in other countries and other species of bats, they are also pollinators, something similar to what bees do except that you know they eat seeds and they spread seeds and stuff like that. But here in Canada it is mainly about pest control, mosquitoes, crop destruction stuff like that.
13:53
Kathy
The current bat population in Ontario, in Canada, is it strong? Are they threatened in any way, their existence threatened in any way?
14:03
Megan
Some species in in Ontario are endangered. Our little brown bat is endangered. The, Kathyie you’ll have to help me on this, I believe it's the long eared bat is endangered. Our big brown bat population the one that we see the most at Salthaven is not in danger but they still do suffer from some of the effects of you know habitat destruction. There's also white nose syndrome. And there's you know, climate change, lots of aspects that are impacting bats health and their longevity.
14:37
Kathy
And what are you noticing with climate change? Any kind of trend? Is it too early to say yet how that's impacting the bats?
14:44
Megan
Well, this season we are seeing bats come in earlier and in more volume this year as we were talking earlier. We have 18 bats currently in care which is I think Kathie is 3 times almost 3 times the amount we would normally typically have at this time of the season and that could be due to our very mild winter that we've had up until now.
15:11
Kathie
When we were talking about things like climate change, you know I think other populations and in different areas of the country are certainly seeing a big impact. Down in the States last year there was a big freeze in Houston and that just resulted in such a fast drop in temperature that bats were literally falling out of their roosts onto the ground to be saved you know areas where there's more drought, there's less water for the bats. There's less insects so that there is more of them starving to death things like that. If they don't get those body weights up the first year for a bat that first winter is the highest risk for bats to not be able to survive under normal circumstances because they don't necessarily have enough weight on them. So you know if you start talking about them not being able to torpor properly, then yeah I think we're going to see a pretty big impact on our bat populations and at this point, 50% of the species in Ontario is on the endangered list so we don't have a lot of wiggle room. We really do need to help these populations.
16:18
Kathy
And I guess what are the ramifications if we don't?
16:22
Megan
I think we're going to spend as a country a lot more money on crop pesticides. Like the amount of money that bats save the industry is in the millions and billions. It's a lot. A lot of money goes towards pesticides already for crops. If we eliminated bats or reduced their numbers we're going to spend a lot more.
16:45
Kathy
You've both talked about how the bats eat a lot of insects. What are you feeding them over the winter when they're at Salthaven?
16:55
Kathie
So at Salthaven primarily the diet are mealworms. And those are ones Megan actually has a wonderful supplement blend that we have so that we can gut load these mealworms. They eat the supplements that we've given them and those supplements in turn are eaten by our bats and that mimics more of what they need in their diet in order to survive. I think we've trialled crickets a couple of times. They're not so interested in that. If a bat is really weak we do stick to a liquid diet for them in order to get their calories up and the fat up just to get them a little bit more stable.
17:34
Kathy
And I understand too that at some points along the way probably almost every season you end up with a bat that's pregnant?
17:43
Megan
We do. Yeah and it seems every year it we become more successful with pups being born. You know bats get, they typically become pregnant or gestated in the fall. And then it's when they wake up from their torpor in the spring and the conditions are more favourable, they're warmer, bugs are plentiful. They have their maternity roosts and so something in their ecology will say hey let's continue on with this pregnancy and they will gestate, or their pregnancy will continue and yeah, the pups will be born. In the wild they're typically born in in late May to June, but with us depending on when they come in, and depending on if they were pregnant when they came in they can be pregnant or have their pups as early as March I think that was our I think that's been our earliest cohort of pups being born was March.
18:41
Kathy
So, what it's like a couple of months gestation period or how long is that?
18:46
Megan
With our big brown bats I believe it's somewhere between 50 to 60 days. So we can often track them by their weight. We're not always accurate, but definitely their weight is a great indication. There's some physical examinations that we can do to help us determine but it really comes down to just monitoring them and watching them. When the birth is imminent there are some other signs that we can watch for to kind of give us clues that they are ready to give birth.
19:14
Kathy
And what are bats like as parents? Do they both play, mom and dad, both play equal roles? How long are the pups allowed to stay along before they're kicked out of the proverbial nest so to speak?
19:31
Kathie
So it's interesting that you know as big brown bats basically will roost together throughout the year until they get into the spring and then the females will create these maternity roosts, these maternity colonies and there will be many, many bats that get together and it is all the females. The males at this point have you know they're not in the picture at all. But these females will give birth and they're incredibly supportive of each other, they will look after their other pups. You know mom goes out to go hunting. There's other bats there to kind of look after the pups. That’s actually you know, totally different than what people seem to think in their heads and pups. Megan, correct me if I'm wrong, but the pups generally learn to fly between four and six weeks of age and my understanding is they will stay with them until you know the next spring when we go back into the maternity colonies where you know again, maybe daughters are with moms who knows but there's there's no kicking out of a nest as far as I understand.
20:42
Megan
Yeah, it's my understanding that 75% of the females born will stay with their mom in that maternity roost. Typically the males as Kathie said after that first season when maternity time comes they typically leave the roost and don't return. Whether it's known if they actually return in the fall to that roost or not, it's kind of hard to track and you are right there they are flying between 4 to six weeks and during that learning to fly is also when they start to transition to an adult diet so they are, that's when they begin the weaning process as well. So they'll still stick with mom, fly with her, learn to hunt, and then they just slowly become efficient as well.
21:21
Kathy
Ok, let's talk about bat personalities because you've both seen hundreds of bats over the course of your time with Salthaven. Do they have different personalities? What are those personalities like?
21:34
Megan
Oh man, we have encountered some really sassy bats and we've encountered some really agreeable docile bats. It's very interesting to see that they really do have individual personalities. Even if you get 2 sassy bats, they're different. They're sassy for different reasons you know some of them are very vocal and they're content to tell you know how it is and what they want and what they don't want and then there's others that are just very chill and laid back and. And you examine them, and I mean most bats don't typically like having their wings opened up to be inspected but we get the odd bat that just doesn't really seem to mind that we are inspecting them, brushing them, handling them quite a bit.
22:22
Kathie
It's interesting because you know on that same vent, you know if a bat is very content they actually vibrate. It's basically a bat version of purring which is a lot of you know you just feel kind of good. Okay, we're doing the right thing here. The bat's content with us, that's okay. On the other hand you know, just like people they all have different personalities. Some are outgoing, some you know want to be alone, some of them love to be with their cohorts, others like to be beside their cohort. You know so really a lot like people and you do get to know, looking at these bats, if you didn't know which bat was which a lot of times that personality is something that you can use to identify an individual bat.
23:10
Kathy
Right and actually that's a good point because quite often, and not just with the bats at Salthaven but say there are 5 goslings that all come in and so there are little colours that are put on top of their head and just for our listeners, that is non-toxic paint right? And it's simply as a way to be able to tell who is who.
23:34
Megan
Yeah, we do the same thing with the bats. They each get their own individual colour. But sometimes that colour wears off. They're expert cleaners. They're self-grooming quite a bit. They spend a lot of their time grooming and so sometimes when we arrive they've managed to get most of the paint off and it's lucky for us that we can typically rely on their personality you know some of their vocalizations or just the way they move in your hand or respond to our ourselves.
24:01
Kathy
So, you must each have a favourite bat story that you tell at you know it's your favorite party trick kind of thing. What;s a favourite bat story that you have from your time at Salthaven.
24:14
Kathie
There are a lot to pick from. I would say that the one that's really stuck with me most was a silver bat, a silver haired bat that we got in several years ago and it's not so much that it was something specifically unique about their stay with us. It was more about her personality. She was very sassy. She was quite vocal; would let you know that she wasn't really impressed with things that you did. But I like to feel that she and I actually had a bit of a rapport. We got along quite well and it just one of those ones that you just have a real soft spot for.
24:51
Kathy
And I would guess that's a pretty or more of a rare occurrence to have that kind of a bat at the clinic?
24:56
Kathie
As far as a silver-haired bat, yes. As far as you know the rapport, I think bats do identify the people that are working with them so they do recognize you and you know they, as the season goes on, they, not sure what the word is I'm looking for…
25:16
Kathy
Is it like building a trust? You're building that relationship and a trust?
25:19
Kathie
Yeah, I think that would be a lot of what it is. There is a lot of trust. With some bats that comes very quickly, with others it takes time, with some bats it just doesn't happen.
25:33
Kathy
And Megan what's your story?
25:37
Megan
Oh gosh. So a couple of years ago we had a female come in the very beginning of the season. She was one of our first if not the first and in that season we had a lot of boys coming in initially and so we generally keep the boys and the females separated. We had this female on her own because we weren't getting any females in and it took about I think six weeks before we got our first female. I was growing a bit concerned that she was going to be depressed and that she was kind of showing signs of just a general malaise and so we finally had gotten a female in and when you know we were able to introduce her this new female, you know had climbed up the enclosure wall to meet the older female in care and the older female literally opened up her wing and took in this newer female and immediately was just kind of on top of her, grooming her, sniffing her from head to toe. And you know I left them to kind of get to know one another and when I peeked in on them half an hour later they were they were just snuggled up. You know she was just enwrapped like enclosed in the other bat’s wing. It was just the sweetest thing to see this instant acceptance and friendship. You know so I think that's one of my favourite moments with the bat squad.
26:54
Kathy
Oh my gosh, yeah, that's absolutely precious. Ok, so before we wrap things up, for our listeners out there, they get a bat in their house. They're running around frantically, everybody seems to get out of broom something to start with. How do people get a bat out of the house? What's the best way?
27:17
Megan
It depends on the time of year. If it is winter we don't want you releasing it outside. That’s a certain death for the bat here in Canada, if you release the bat outside during you know, late fall, winter and early spring. So we recommend that you definitely give us a call. We can give you advice over the phone, but I think first and foremost you know, just stop, take a breath. Don't panic. Just know that this bat is more scared than you are. And it is definitely trying to be away from you. It's looking for a safe place to land and be safe.
27:56
Kathie
The main thing in this time of year would be if you could get a box or a container and place it over top of the bat is the main thing and then slip a piece of paper you. You know you see a lot of people capturing bugs this way to release them outside. It's the basically the same thing where you're covering it up and you're sliding a piece of cardboard or paper over top of it so that you've captured the bat without handling it and that's one of the key things that we would also want people to do is never handle a bat with bare hands. You know if you've got a pair of leather gloves, something to protect you, because they do bite. And rabies is always a risk with these kinds of bats. A very low risk but it is still a risk so we do want people to be safe when they're handling them. During the summer months we can recommend that you open up doors and windows. You know the bat wants to be out. The bat does not want to be there. So it's looking for its way out that would help it but like Megan said wintertime is a death sentence for them. So you know that would be the main way is if you can cover them with a container. And then collect them into a box that's secured and then call a wild relief rehab centre for further advice.
29:12
Kathy
And then in terms of helping to conserve and preserve the bat population, what's something that the average homeowner could do?
29:21
Kathie
In Canada, everyone is encouraged to have a bat box. You know if you can have a bat box, build a bat box, there's instructions online. You can build them, instructions on how to post them. And what to watch for. You know that's the biggest thing there are sites that collect that data on whether or not you have a bat house, whether you're seeing bats, and that's all in an attempt to understand more about bad behaviour and bat populations because that's the best way that we can learn to conserve our bat populations is to understand more about them.
29:59
Kathy
Yeah, in some of the research I was doing before we started chatting I came across the Canadian Wildlife Federation and that they actually have a site online where you can go and report a bat sighting. Explain a little bit about why that's important.
30:18
Kathie
So this is more again about understanding our populations of bats. So there's few things we want to know which bats are being, how many bats are being seen. It tells us a little bit tracking what kind of roost they’re looking for. It also helps to understand what it is that appeals to a bat about a bat house. Is it the colour? Is it the location? Is it the direction that it's facing? Things like that. And again these sightings as they're being logged in is collecting data so that you know research is being done to understand these natural populations because the more we learn the more that we can help figure out plans on how to help conserve these populations and to boost them. You know we touched earlier on things like white nose syndrome but other things that are really impacting the bats in our society right now are destruction of their natural habitat. Climate change, definitely we're seeing an effect in areas on that and additionally things ironically wind turbines have quite an impact on our bats as well and there's research being done to help support bat populations during migration seasons for example, so that they try to avoid having some wind turbines running during certain migration times to hopefully reduce impact on bats.
31:52
Kathy
With the wind turbines is it literally bats were flying into the wind turbines? Is that what's happening?
32:00
Kathie
There's a really big pressure gradient as those turbines are turning so it's not even so much that the bats are actually hitting the turbines so much as the pressure on the air actually implodes their little lungs. It's unfortunate, but that is kind of where things are at and again some companies are actually working toward different ways of dealing with that to help avoid those kinds of interactions.
32:28
Kathy
And then with the bats that are coming into Salthaven do you, is Salthaven as an organization reporting that information into the Canadian Wildlife Federation or like are we contributing to that research as well?
32:42
Kathie
Not directly. We do have to report to the ministry every year of what wildlife is being brought into Salthaven so with that every bat is being reported that we are bringing in, so species, gender, all of those things are all being recorded.
33:02
Kathy
I think we can leave it there for now. Thank you so much. Both of you Megan and Kathie for joining me today. I'll let you have the last word. What's your message to our listeners about bats?
33:18
Megan
Bats are amazing and they're absolutely not what you think they are. They are altruistic. They are gentle. They are wild and they are free. They have their own personalities. They're really. They may not look like a cute furry bunny or a baby duck you know, but they are just little bundles of energy and joy and to be able to experience seeing one is just a privilege really I think to see one out in the wild. Should be super happy because the numbers are declining and so to be able to see one is just you know, amazing. They're great animals.
34:01
Kathie
That's pretty much what I would be saying too. One of the greatest joys we have is at the end of the season when we're actually to take these bats that we've had in care for months, so you know you do get to know them and one of the best feelings is to be able to let them go and watch them fly and know that they're back out there. It's that's the main reason we do what we're doing.
32:23
Kathy
It must be so rewarding. All right, thank you both.
And thank you for listening!
As always, drop me a line if you have a question about something you hear in an episode of Wild About Wildlife. Or if you have an idea for a future episode. You can reach me at wildaboutwildlife@salthaven.org.
You can find Wild About Wildlife on Google, Spotify and Apple. Don’t forget to subscribe!
Together we can keep the wild in wildlife.