Bat-roosting season is near. If you think you have bats in your home, check now.
Bat roosting season — the time when bats find a place to rest and raise their young — begins May 1 in North Carolina, but wildlife experts say now is the time to check for bats and make sure your home is sealed off.
That May 1 date is important because once bats have their babies in your home, removal becomes much more complicated. And while bats are important creatures in the ecosystem (more on that later), you definitely don’t want to have one (or more) cozy up inside your home.
The News & Observer spoke with Katherine Etchison, wildlife diversity biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Commission, to learn more about why we should start preparing for bat roosting season now.
Prepare your home for bat roosting season
Here’s what Etchison said about bat roosting season:
▪ Check now to see if bats are roosting in your home: Before bat roosting season begins (and bats are in vulnerable positions), you can call on a Wildlife Control Agent, certified by the N.C. Wildlife Commission, to check out your home.
To contact a Wildlife Control Agent, visit ncwildlife.org/Trapping/Wildlife-Control-Agent.
You should only need to do this if you suspect you have bats in your home, Etchison said. If you find bat stool (called “guano”), that’s a common indicator that bats might be living in vents, behind shutters or in another nook on the inside or outside of your home.
(Note: You will need to pay for Wildlife Control Agents’ services.)
▪ To get evicted, a bat needs to fly: This means that flightless bat pups can’t be removed from the home, Etchison said. That’s why it’s important to act before roosting season begins.
“They’re initially flightless,” Etchison said. “It becomes a little complex to get the bats out during that period because all the bats rely on their mothers completely and can’t fly away.”
So if an adult bat flew out and the pups stayed behind, you’d be dealing with two situations, Etchison said. One: bat pups dying in your space (and dealing with dead animals in your attic and in the walls of your house); and two, a determined bat mom trying everything to get back into your house.
▪ The blackout period begins May 1: This means that between May 1 and July 31, the Wildlife Control Agents will not extract bats. Since these bats are so vulnerable in their roosting season, expert handlers will leave them in place to ensure they survive.
▪ Seal your space: Even though they can’t extract, these experts can come to your home and ensure spots from your attic to your living space are sealed up, limiting contact with a bat, Etchison said.
▪ Bats are faithful creatures: Bats return to the same roost every spring, Etchison said. This means that if bats are roosting in your attic this spring, they’ll come back a year from now.
If you don’t mind having bats around, you can install a bat roosting space (outside of your home, of course) to keep you, your family and the bats safe.
“You can provide alternative roosting space by installing bat boxes 12 to 20 feet high in a place with at least seven hours of direct sunlight in the summer.
For tips on building, buying or installing bat boxes, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission recommends following instructions from batcon.org/about-bats/bat-houses.
Are bats dangerous?
Bats do not attack people unless provoked, but bites can occur when people try to catch or pick up a bat.
A bite from a bat can cause rabies, and being around bat guano (feces) can lead to disease.
Rabies
About 55,000 Americans receive treatment after being exposed to rabies every year, The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. The treatment cost comes to about $3,800, and it doesn’t include hospital treatment or wound care costs.
Vox reported rabies treatment costing up to $10,000 in the United States. The treatment includes four shots given over two weeks, but each one gets administered at a separate appointment, which stacks the costs considerably.
Many people who have been bitten by a bat feel a “stinging or needle prick sensation,” reported the Minnesota Department of Health. But since bats leave a small wound — or sometimes no evidence of a wound — it might be difficult to know if you got bitten.
“When we get a call or email that someone found a bat, we direct them to their county health department, because they’ll be the best source to say whether exposure occurred or not,” Etchison said.
Histoplasmosis
“They can have fungal spores in their guano, which can cause histoplasmosis,” which is a fungal disease, Etchison said.
According to the CDC, histoplasmosis can cause fever, cough, fatigue, chills, headache, chest pain and body aches. In those with weakened immune systems, it can develop into a more serious long-term lung infection or spread to the brain or spinal cord.
Why are bats important?
While you don’t want to invite a bat into your living space, bats are an important part of our ecosystem. If you have one in your home, you should make sure it’s protected and removed humanely, Etchison said.
Here’s why bats are important:
▪ They’re bug vacuums: “They are ecologically and economically valuable, providing free pest control as they nearly devour their own body weight in insects nightly. Their appetite increases even more during pup-rearing season,” an N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission press release says.
Bats’ insect consumption saves more than $3 billion in pest control per year across all agricultural production, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
▪ They’re pollinators: “While many bats eat insects, others feed on nectar and provide critical pollination for a variety of plants like peaches, cloves, bananas and agaves,” per FWS. “In fact, bats are the sole pollinator for the agave plant, a key ingredient in tequila!”
▪ They disperse seeds: Bats play a major role in seed dispersal, according to FWS. Bats that eat fruit are responsible for 95% of the seed dispersal that can help regrow rain forests.
This story was originally published March 14, 2022 at 4:00 PM.
