Bat Appreciation Week and Wildlife Wednesday!

Happy Wildlife Wednesday! Today we're going to be talking about bats in honor of this week being bat appreciation week! Because bats carry rabies, my only interaction with them has been watching them soar around the sky at night time! But that doesn't mean we shouldn't all still learn everything we can about them!

Wisconsin has eight different species of bats living within our state. While that sounds like a lot, there are over 1200 other species of bats around the world! Did you know bats are the only mammals that have adapted to fly? I love these little guys and think that, despite their rodent-like appearance, they're still pretty cute!

A bat's main diet consists of fruit, pollen, insects, and other invertebrates, frogs, fish, and even blood. They use echolocation for hunting their food because they typically have very poor eyesight. Because of their insect intake, bats are beneficial to farmers, saving them around $658 million every year in pest control services.

Wisconsin has two different categories of bats, tree bats, and cave bats. Three bats chose to migrate south for warmer weather, where Cave bats stay local throughout our cold months, hibernating deep in caves. This makes the four species of cave bats susceptible to white-nose syndrome. This is a fungal disease that has a 95% mortality rate on infected colonies of bats.

Because they are large carriers of rabies, only some wildlife facilities can take bats. If you find a bat that seems to be in distress, call the DNR for further instruction. Whether that is to wait on a DNR official to come to the site, or they will connect you with a rehabilitation facility that is licensed to handle bats.