The perfect birthday present

[navigator9]

I know there are a lot of animal lovers on this forum. It's hard not to go "Awww!" when you see pictures of those cute little puppy and kitten furballs. What's not to love? But I'm always moved when people extend their kindness to the more "unlovable" creatures...the ones that aren't so cute.

My best friend found an injured baby bat on her deck a couple of years ago, and this woman who has never, ever in her life been late to work, was late that day, because she drove several towns away with this little bat, to bring it to the only vet she could find who would take it. Her birthday is coming up next month, and at our age, we don't really need or want anything. We usually go out to lunch or do something we both enjoy, but this year I was able to find something I know she will like. I adopted a bat in her name. I saw this little guy on youtube, and I went to the bat sanctuary's site, and looked at all of the bats, but this little guy had stolen my heart. The "adoption papers" arrived yesterday, quite a nice package, suitable for a gift. I know she will love it. It makes me so happy to know there are people on this earth who extend their kindness and love to these little guys that make so many people cringe with horror. Maybe I'm weird, but I found it impossible not to fall in love with L'il Drac. Here he is.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84jdO8YrYA[/ame]
And here's another pretty amazing video.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LMZmd39fps[/ame]

 

[Obsidian]

I love bats, draco rocking himself is absolutely adorable. Thanks for posting these videos and kudos to your friend for saving the baby, most people would have left it or killed it.

 

[Susie]

Bats are helpful animals. They eat lots and lots of mosquitoes. We had a couple of bat boxes out in the back yard when I was growing up. I loved sitting outside at dusk and watching them pouring out of the boxes and flying off!

 

[shunt2011]

What a great gift idea. I bet she will love it. They are so cute.

 

[dixiedragon]

That's awesome. What a sweet gesture! Just a word of warning though - bats are bad about carrying rabies. A doctor told me that in my state, every human rabies case in the last decade can be traced back to a bat. Because their teeth are so small, people often don't realize they've been bitten! And once a human starts exhibiting rabies symptoms, it's too late to help them. So if you see an injured bat and you feel compelled to help it, at least wear gloves!

 

[navigator9]

That's awesome. What a sweet gesture! Just a word of warning though - bats are bad about carrying rabies. A doctor told me that in my state, every human rabies case in the last decade can be traced back to a bat. Because their teeth are so small, people often don't realize they've been bitten! And once a human starts exhibiting rabies symptoms, it's too late to help them. So if you see an injured bat and you feel compelled to help it, at least wear gloves!

Absolutely! My girlfriend is a nurse, and very conscious about safety measures. I read that all of the workers at the bat sanctuary are inoculated against rabies, too.

What was a big surprise to me, was how the bats seem to enjoy interacting with people. Which is not to say that people should think about keeping them as pets. Many of the rescues at the sanctuary come from people who thought that was a good idea. But it was nice to see how the recovering bats interacted with people. And I remembered from seeing a documentary a while ago, what good mothers bats are, but when I saw the bat in the second video swoop down to carry off her missing baby, I was floored! What amazing animals they are.

 

[Seawolfe]

OMG I love bats! And that wee one rocking himself...
And I had no idea a mother could carry a baby that big.

Ive always been intrigued by the Aussie flying fox rescue - Ive seen pics of volunteers with the inside of their jackets full of baby bats! And they wrap them up like little bat burritos like this:

And Ill just leave this here:

 

[navigator9]

OMG I love bats! And that wee one rocking himself...
And I had no idea a mother could carry a baby that big.

Ive always been intrigued by the Aussie flying fox rescue - Ive seen pics of volunteers with the inside of their jackets full of baby bats! And they wrap them up like little bat burritos like this:

And Ill just leave this here:

OMG, that bottom pic looks just like Lil Drac. And yesssssss...bat burritos!!! Here you go. I love them with their pacifiers!!! If there were a bat sanctuary around here, I'd volunteer.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuvaos1WHTk[/ame]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbTWWWtFFUs&feature=iv&src_vid=Uuvaos1WHTk&annotation_id=annotation_3022194229[/ame]

 

[snappyllama]

Bats are just adorable winged hamsters. I love all the videos.

 

[BlackDog]

How sweet! I happen to love bats; we have plenty of them around and almost no bugs in the summer! Plus I really do think they're cute.

 

[CaraBou]

(Oh boy. Did I screw up by deleting this twice when thinking this was in the wrong Birthday thread! Sorry mods)

Love the videos! I've had the privilege to work with bats occasionally through my career. I was even vaccinated against rabies one year to allow more liberal handling. I can definitively say, bats are very cool creatures.

But my real contribution to this thread is to promote awareness that several species of bats in North America are threatened by an introduced fungus referred to as White-Nose Syndrome. It grows on hibernating bats, causing them to awaken and become active at a time when they should be conserving energy rather than expending it. Millions of bats (seriously) have died here since the fungus was first discovered in the Northeast US only 10 years ago (2006). The non-native fungus has been aggressively spreading, and now occurs in 30 US states and 5 Canadian provinces.

Here's timelapse of the alarming progression: http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2012/whitenose/

And a clip by Texas Parks & Wildlife explaining the problem https://youtu.be/YifcpmE53M0
Sorry I couldn't figure out how to embed the actual videos!

 

[navigator9]

I'm familiar with this syndrome. Such a shame to have animals that do us so much good, like the honeybees, to be struck with this devastating disease. Hopefully, someone will come up with a solution soon, to solve the problem for both of them.

I envy you having been able to work with the bats. It must have been fascinating.