Help! I'm stuck!
Sasparilla the Big Brown Bat trapped in a shutter
Wild animals can get themselves trapped or caught in many different ways. They usually navigate well out in the wild, but human habitation can present all sorts of unexpected traps for them. When I got a call about a bat who was trapped in a shutter, I wasn't at all surprised, but I have been very surprised with this little girl's strength and fortitude during a long healing process.
Sasparilla, or "Sassy," is a Big Brown Bat, though at about 1oz you might not think that she is one of the bigger bat species in our area. Caught in a shutter, she had tried to free herself for at least 18 hours. As bats are considered "rabies vector species" in New York (see previous June/July newsletter for info on rehabilitating "RVS" species) there are few people who are licensed to help these wonderful mammals. By the time the finders were able to find Wild Things Sassy was exhausted and in bad shape.
After being carefully removed from the shutter, her injury was assessed. Amazingly, nothing was broken, but the skin and soft tissue was worn down all the way to the bone, and she had a long tear in the wing's delicate membrane skin. Her teeth were worn down from trying to free herself and she had lost a lot of blood. Upon admission she weighed just 14g (1/2oz), but after rehydration she was up to 18g by the next morning. Although the injury did not look too severe and she was immediately started on antibiotics, circulation to the area was compromised and the injury proceeded to get very ugly and swollen.
I was worried that without proper blood and nerve supply the tissue would just start dying and the whole wing would become necrotic and dead. I searched for a veterinarian who was willing to work with a bat. Again, being an RVS animal, many vets are unwilling to work with these species. Finally, a wonderful vet, Tanya Jackson in PennYan, NY almost 2 hours away, agreed to help. An X-ray showed nothing broken and examination of the tissue and exudate just indicated a horribly bad infection, but no dead tissue. There was hope!
We started her on a different combination of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and pain-killers. And 2-3 times a day I soaked her wing in a special gentle solution designed to fight off any bacteria or other yuckies such as yeast and fungi. I worked out a way to let her hang upside down while keeping her infected wrist joint in the solution.
Sassy being a very good patient while her wing is soaked
I have worked with bats before and they can be very hard to handle. They are so small and "bitey" that it can be hard to hold them in place (without getting bitten) while trying to do any kind of procedure on their tiny bodies. But Sassy has been a wonderful patient. The medicine is nasty tasting, and she didn't like it at all, but took it twice a day for many weeks. And the wing soaking must have been awkward and uncomfortable for her, but she put up with it giving me few complaints.
Sassy is now up to 34g! She loves her diet of mealworms and waxworms. All mealworms must be "gut loaded" before feeding them to a bat. This means that the mealworms eat special food so that when they are eaten, they pass along essential nutrients. It costs more to feed the mealworms than a lot of other animals at Wild Things! With winter fast approaching and because of her injuries, Sassy will over-winter at Wild Things. By spring she should be ready to go! Did you know bats can live over 20 years? This means she will probably have friends and family waiting for her!
A delicious dinner!
Bats are a symbol of Halloween and are often feared by humans. With this holiday approaching, it is a great time to change our minds about how we think about these animals. Did you know that they save our country billions of dollars a year by providing free pest control? That they are quite gentle and they will not aggressively go after humans? That only a very small percent of bats carry rabies? In 2010 only 2% of bats tested for rabies in NY were positive carriers of the disease.
Because animals must be killed to be tested for rabies, be smart and know the facts before you send an innocent animal to a health department and to its death.
These little animals help humans every day and have never asked for anything in return. Now more than ever, in the face of the deadly White Nose Syndrome (see column at right), we can return the favor by standing up for bats and being educated about the facts! Want to know more about bats? Take a look at Bat World or Bat Conservation International. And make sure you pick up a copy of the The Wild Times, winter 2011, coming out Nov/Dec 2011!
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