October is the season for BATS!

Somewhere along in time, bats became associated with spooky things like Halloween. While many people are scared of bats, and they can be dangerous (you don’t want them living in your home), they also can be highly beneficial.

Bats feed on insects, and on fruits and nectar in tropical areas. There are blood-feeding (“vampire”) bats that feed mainly on cattle at night, but none occur in this country. In the Western Hemisphere vampire bats are found only from Mexico down to Argentina.

Insect-eating bats, the most common bats in this country, consume up to ½ their weight in insects during a single night. Some cave colonies of the Mexican free-tailed bat contain up to 20 million bats and are estimated to consume 100,000 pounds of insects a night!

Despite the many beneficial aspects of bats, they can be a serious problem when they choose our homes to live in. Accumulations of their droppings and urine eventually cause odor and staining problems, and attract other pests. Histoplasmosis, a fungal disease that attacks our lungs, can breed in accumulations of droppings of both bats and birds.

Bats can also carry rabies, but few of them do. Fortunately rabid bats rarely become aggressive like some rabid animals do. The vast majority of bites occur when someone tries to pick up a sick-looking bat—never do this! Even a minor bite or scratch from a bat can transmit the rabies virus and must be treated.

If you have problems with bats nesting where they shouldn’t, call us.