Winthrop- My First Baby Bat

It was July, and the first baby bat that I ever rescued was about 7 days old, from my estimation. His eyes weren’t yet open, he had little “milk-teeth”, he was hairless and pale, with had a purple-greyish cast to his skin. The gentleman who located me on the internet under a search for “bat rehabbers in Wisconsin” said that the little bat had fallen out of the bat maternity colony in his clay roof tiles. I brought a port-o-bat with a warming disc and cloths to place him in for the trip home. He needed feeding and bats must be warm in order to feed them, or they can’t absorb the meal properly, and the milk can sour or bloat in their stomachs, causing death.

I named him Winthrop, after the street name where I picked him up. Winthrop immediately began being fed milk replacement about 7 times a day for a week or so, after which it tapered down over the next few weeks to once a day, filling in another meal with decapitated meal worms. Feeding baby bats milk replacement is quite time consuming and each meal, in the beginning, took about 45 minutes. Obviously, we spent many hours together, deeply bonding, since he was missing anyone able to truly care for him.

As Winthrop grew and was eating only meal worms, our feeding times turned game-like for the tiny Big Brown bat. Like all young children, young bats play as well. Winthrop began to anticipate the zipper of the mesh crate I kept him in being opened, and he liked to follow the zipper. We played this game each time I needed to feed or water him…I ran my fingernail along the zipper to make him think it was being opened. He ran along it, chasing my fingernail, and I was able to safely open the zipper behind him. I placed my arm in the crate, he jumped onto it and ran up my arm, hungrily waiting for hand fed worms, eating up to 35 a night.

As Winthrop grew and Spring approached, I knew he’d be a candidate for release after May 15th. I started teaching him to fly in the flight cage. We’d have a couple of lessons a night and as his wings got stronger, and he sustained flight longer, I knew he’d be able to be a real bat soon, free and outside. We still played games every night and he was moved into the larger cage where he could fly at will, with all the older boys. By then his routine was to greet me when I walked into the cage by flying to my shoulder, and climbing in my hair, where he would hang next to my ear, and chirp in his happy little bat way… That was so special to me. I still made sure he ate enough nightly and he was doing amazingly well with all his training.

May 15th came and he was moved to the outside, secure flight cage to see if he would catch insects on his own…He never figured that out, unfortunately, even with the guidance of other wild bats that I had “wintered-over”….Winthrop was unreleasable simply because he wouldn’t be able to find food for himself. My heart sank for him because he could never be freed. He was, however, happy, in the world that he’d grown accustomed to, having never known another…

Getting Our First Bats

After moving to Milwaukee and getting settled in here, I reconnected with the Madison bat rehabbers. The rehabber they worked with previously in Milwaukee, had recently moved to Minnesota. Soon I was also volunteering in the Wisconsin Humane Society's wildlife rehab facility and eventually started caring for some non-releaseable bats at home.

All the things I was working toward were falling into place. I always name the bats I receive and the first non-releasable, educational bats were Vleer and Vesper. Soon after I picked up Vicious, appropriately named, at that time. After several years, and complete healing from his near fatal compound wing fracture, he's one of the sweetest bats in my care.

The agreement is that I care for non-releasable male bats and the Madison rehabbers keep the females, which prevents unplanned baby bats. Since Big Brown bats can live up to 30 years in captivity, there would be the potential for one pup a year from the females, if they were not segregated based on gender. The most common bats in Wisconsin are the Big Browns, followed by Little Browns. In addition to those we have these other bats: Hoary, Red, Silver Hair, Eastern Pipistrelle, and the Northern Long Ear.

Even though I had been through an intensive course, as with everything, there was a learning curve. I am still learning about the bats to this day, and every night when I feed them, medicated the ones in need, and clean their housing, I remember why I do it; to help all that I can, realizing that I can't save every one, but their chances are much better with me, and others like me, trying to help them one by one.

How I Originally Became Interested in Bats

It was 1995 and I was watching the Discovery Channel. The topic was bats and the location was Mineral Wells, Texas. The story was about a woman, Amanda Lollar (http://www.batworld.org/), who was walking along the sidewalk one summer day and found a little Mexican Free-Tailed bat, later know as "Sunshine") clinging to life, baking on the sidewalk. Amanda knew nothing of bat rehab, and I suspect that there was very little knowledge in general about it then, anyway, but she knew that she could not leave the bat to die, so she scooped it up took it home, so do enormous amounts of research on helping her.

The story unfolded to reveal that on that day, Amanda's life was changed. Since then, she has given her life to rehabbing and saving bats, as well as becoming a foremost authority on bats in the US. I was greatly moved by this, having been an animal lover my entire life, saving little creatures that I would encounter, who needed some sort of treatment and help. Soon, I began joining groups like BCI (Bat Conservation International) and Bat World Sanctuary. Trips were organized to tour caves and watch bat emergences at dusk. I traveled to do these things.

Eventually, in 2003, I decided to learn from Amanda in Texas, and attended her "Bat Boot Camp" so that I, too, could begin to personally help and save bats. The first step was to be innoculated against rabies, though. In July, 2003, I attended the week-long, intensive, 12+ hour days to learn about bats. I was elated and the experience was very rewarding!

At that time I was living in New Orleans, LA, and the people attending Amanda's bootcamp were from all over the US. Two people I met there were from Madison, WI, and we became friends. Also while I was there my husband was offered a position at a university in Milwaukee, so it evolved that the Madison bat rehabbers and I would be working closely together after my move.