What I Know About Bats

What I Know About Bats

I have, in my life, personally caught and released three bats. Two of them lived, one of them perished.

The first time I had to catch a bat was while working overnight as a security guard / janitor in an Old Folks home in Cambridge, Ontario. I received a report that a bat had been spotted down on the Alzheimer's wing, and that I was required to go and remove it forthwith.  Now, this was a little disturbing, because some of the residents in that wing would, on occasion, barrel out of their room naked and screeching. That was, of course, extremely tragic and sad, but also gut-wrenchingly terrifying at 3am. I did not think the addition of a bat into that scenario would go very well. A co-worker and I managed to get the bat trapped into one small room, which meant that we also had to be trapped in a small room with a freaked out bat. I managed to bring the bat down with a well-aimed broom strike, scoop it into a waste basket covered by a towel, and bring it outside where it flapped happily away to turn into Dracula or Edward or something.

Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes" once described Bats as "The Great Flying Insect of the Night".

The second time I had to catch a bat was in our new house just after we brought Ciara home from the hospital. Cherie woke up screaming, while a bat flew around our heads, clearly threatening to attack our newborn girl. So I leaped into action, while Cherie leaped under the covers. This time the bat flew into our closet, which was really horrible, because it meant I had to GO INTO THE CLOSET TO GET THE BAT. I removed every article of clothing (from the closet, not from myself - I did not hunt the bat naked), and eventually found the bat squeezed into a little corner, trying to look like a shadow. It them flew into my face and out into the room again. A well-aimed broom strike brought it down (again), and I went to release it outside. This one got caught in the towel, and did not fly out until I shook the towel with lots of feeling.

Bat guano, in large quantities, can produce a fatal chemical atmosphere for humans. I have also heard that it may be used in certain types of explosives.

The third time I caught a bat was once again in my house, in my room, late at night, with Cherie screaming. This time, a well-aimed broom strike (why mess with a classic?) killed that vampire dead. Just to be sure, I put a tiny little toothpick through its heart, and exposed it to the sun the next morning (not really).

An American scientist once atempted to create a "bat-bomb" during WW2 for use against Japan, which involved placing a tiny incendiary device on thousands of bats and releasing them over Japanese cities. The project was scrapped when the Atomic bomb was developed.

These are the things I know about bats.