Star the yellow bat pup
Good morning Star! You’re a beautiful girl!
bat rescue
Scruffy!
He’s a tri-colored juvenile who was learning to fly when he somehow ended up inside the atrium at 600 Congress Avenue in Austin. So the Congress bats aren’t the only bats living in the heart of downtown! We have gotten tri-coloreds n from this area previously, so we suspect they are well at home in the high-rised parking garages and breezeways that shelter them from predators.
Box employees have a workout room that is open to the atrium, and this juvie spent the day on their jungle gym before Jo and Ian contained him and brought him to us for safer fledging. Nice work you two!
Scarlet and the Orphan Girls Release
Here’s your backup water, Scarlet. Tell the girls about it, but don’t tell them you were our favorite. Love you! So happy to see you orphan girls cruising the treetops together! omg that looks like so much fun! Long Life Little Ones!
We first met you Scarlet, when we responded to someone, referred to us by another bat organization, who wanted to know how to feed a bat, didn’t know anything about bats, was not permitted or vaccinated, but also “doesn’t drive” so could not bring the bat in for proper care. When we first saw you in the big glass jug, we just knew we had to get you out of there. It took a lot of convincing, but we finally got the “rescuer” to agree to release her to our care. He planned to keep her in the jug and feed her moths for as long as she survived. His theory was “it’s like it was dead already since I could capture it”.
We are so happy you came with us Scarlett, and you got that second chance at a wild life. All our love little bat!
car
Green Release
Our red bat families are all color-coded (with corresponding control numbers) so that we can raise and release them together. It was the “green family” release time last night and what a joy it was to see them all fly off together on a beautiful summer evening!
These red bats were found by Brad Fellers on the ground at his Leander home and certainly would have been killed by predators had he not cared enought to save them. The orphan was saved by Megan Rodriguez near Anderson Mill.
It was our great pleasure to help the pups grow up, turning from little furry blobs of bat blubber into amazing flying, hunting, and self-sufficient wonders of the night sky.
We placed each bat in a pup tent first and one by one we watered, fed, and showed them their back-up drinking trough; the infinity-edged pool that we’ll keep nice and full for them throughout the oncoming drought.
Here’s one of the pups drinking from the pool.
Once all were fed and watered, it was up to the release platform high in a tree above their former enclosure. They were all super-excited and we first did a controlled release with the mum, then quickly set the pups free to follow her, so they could all stay together.
Here’s the happy family circling high in the sky, celebrating their freedom on a beautiful Texas summer night. Live long lives little bats and make lots more beautiful bat babies! Thanks for the memories!
Please Donate at https://austinbatrefuge.org/donations/ to support Austin’s amazing bats!
First pup of the year!
Our first pup of the year, an evening bat, snuggling under his proud mum.
We had a naming contest for Mother’s Da and got so many great suggestions; we loved them all!
Radar got the most votes, but we all have our personal favorites.
You’ll be seeing those other names soon as this year’s pups roll in!
After the crowds leave,
After the crowds leave Congress Avenue Bridge, a few more bats take flight!
All the best girls!
Reddit post cracks us up
Funny (and informative) post from David Curiel, the concierge at the Whisper Valley community.
Red Blanket
This red bat is using her thumbs to stabilize her snooze on this windy day. She has her butt blanket pulled right up over her eyes and it looks like she’s closing her ear with her foot! She was found emaciated on the UT campus but is eating well and will be good to go in a few days. #batifyatx #batifyaustin #austinbats #atxbats #easternredbat #aesomebats
Friday the 13th
We got lucky on Friday the 13th and had lovely weather for our education table at the Bat Viewing Area.
We shared the wonders of bats with scores of out-of-towners.
We so enjoyed meeting Sonia from Austria, Anne from France, Ali & Xav from Paris, and that group of impressive women in town for the Anthropology conference, from Virginia, Canada, the UK and Cyprus.
What fun! Thanks for visiting with us y’all!
We hope the bats were as lucky as we were! We at the Bat Viewing Area all watched on live radar as a lovely Seabreeze pushed insects toward the Hill Country and the Bracken bats foraged along the front. But then things changed.
The lovely Seabreeze turned into wicked storms from the northwest. Davis Blowout, Huber Limestone Mine, McNeil Bridge, and Congress Bridge bats all appeared to have been caught out in the storms. We hope they sheltered at McNeil to escape the worst of it.
Bats caught in hailstorms frequently experience broken wing bones from the hail. Guess we’ll see how many bats are found by humans and brought to us today. Bless their brave little hearts!
Pd positive Mexican free-tailed bat in Blanco County
The following is an article by Zeke MacCormack, a San Antonio Express-News staff writer:
Published in the San Antonio Express-News April 5, 2018
Photo: Marvin Pfeiffer, Staff / San Antonio Express-News
Mexican free-tailed bats emerge from the Bracken Cave at dusk to foray for food on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017.
In a double dose of troubling news, the fungus blamed for killing millions of East Coast bats since its discovery there in 2007 has been found in Central Texas and on a Mexican free-tailed bat — both firsts.
However, the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife announcement of those discoveries Wednesday noted that no Texas bats have been found exhibiting signs of the malady known as “white nose syndrome.”
“Biologists say it usually takes a few years after detecting the fungus for the disease to manifest,” said the release that identified four new Texas counties where Pseudogymnoascus destructans fungus had been found, bringing the total to 10.
It previously was found on cave bats, tri-colored bats and Townsend’s big-eared bats.
In the San Antonio region, the fungus was detected on bats at two sites in Kendall County and two sites in Blanco County.
Kendall County is now the southernmost location in the nation where researchers have discovered the fungus, which was first detected in Texas in 2017 in the Panhandle, officials said.
The deadly illness typically strikes hibernating bats, causing declines of winter populations by more than 90 percent in some locations.
So its presence in free-tailed bats, which migrate rather than hibernate, raises a new series of concerns.
“They migrate in huge populations all over the country so they could spread the disease much faster,” said Jonah Evans, a TPWD mammalogist
The Mexican free-tail bat carrying the fungus was found at the Old Tunnel State Park in Kendall County, he said.
Evans described researchers as shocked by the results of testing on skin swabs that were collected from bat wings and muzzles between December and last month by a coalition of biologists from Bat Conservation International, Texas A&M University’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences and its Natural Resources Institute.
“We were disappointed to see that it had moved southward as fast as it has,” Evans said. “We all expected it would move around the state, but it’s kind of shocking to see it happen this fast.”
The recent testing also found the fungus on bats in Foard and Wheeler counties, in North Texas, officials said.
The TPWD release said, “Because bats usually produce just one offspring per year, researchers are concerned it could take many decades for some populations to recover from a major decline.”
A widespread outbreak of the deadly disease in free-tailed bats could hold financial implications for agricultural producers who rely on the winged mammals to eradicate insects that feed on their crops.
The estimated value of bat pest control is $1.4 billion annually in Texas, the TPWD release says.
“Mexican free-tailed bats are key predators of agricultural pests in Texas, primarily moths that feed on corn and cotton,” said Mylea Bayless of Bat Conservation International.
“Since white nose syndrome is a disease of hibernating bats, we’re cautiously optimistic that Mexican free-tailed bats — which don’t hibernate — will fare better than other species in terms of contracting the disease and experiencing mortality from it,” she said.
The free-tailed bat also is an iconic presence, she said, drawing visitors watch them emerge by the millions from Bracken Cave just north of San Antonio, the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin and other major colonies.
“This bat is special to Texas, which is one of the reasons that this news is particularly distressing,” Bayless said Wednesday.
Beyond trying to track the spread of the fungus, she said, “Bat conservation International is working with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and others to explore and test potential treatments for white nose syndrome.”
Zeke MacCormack is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of his stories here. | zeke@express-news.net | @zekemac