350+ Bats Found In Shopping Mall Elevator

[matcom]

<snip>

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Apparently store hours mean little to hundreds of bats that have flocked to an employee elevator at the back of a shopping mall near downtown.

Roughly 350 of the nocturnal mammals have been found so far, said Brian Berrios of Wildlife Solutions, which has been hired to capture the creepy creatures from the elevator's skylight at the Richland Mall.

Mall management has shut down the elevator to keep the bats from spreading to the mall's shopping area, asking employees of a call center inside the mall to use customer entrances.

"We take this very seriously and don't want anybody injured," said Richland Mall general manager Tim Russell. "If you encounter a bat, it's one too many. They do startle you."

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2004/02/10/hundreds_of_bats_found_in_mall_elevator/

[havocmom]

1. why do people hate bats?

Kill off bat colonies at your peril. West Nile won't be the only disease that gets to spreading rapidly.

They killed off huge colonies that were living under stadium seats in Tucson a few years back. Suddenly there was a mosquito problem and fear of malaria and dengue fever. The skitters were blamed on people having potted plants on their patios. My guess is the potted plants had been there all along. With thousands of bats (10s of thousands actually) gone, the skitters got a bit out of hand.

Spare me the rabies horror stories. How many cases of bat caused rabies where there in the US as opposed to how many cases od other diseases spread by flying insect bites? how many bat caused deaths as opposed to auto accident caused deaths? It's not deaths (rabies or otherwise) we hate, it's bats and it is just plain silly.

[WillParkinson]

3. I caught a bat at work in the middle of winter inside the hotel...

I took it to the Humane Society, assuming that they would care for it and release it in the nicer weather.

What do I find out? I get a call where someone tells me they sent the head to Madison for testing and it came back negative for rabies. I felt like a hole had been punched through my heart. No one told me this was going to happen. The caller stated it so matter-of-factly that I was just stunned. I tried to help the bat and, instead, ended up getting it killed. I cried for the bat and for myself.

[havocmom]

7. Bless you, WillBowden, for your kindness

Sorry the idiots at the shelter broke your heart. See, even among animal lovers, bats are quilty until proven innocent. Saddly, they can't prove themselves innocent without giving up their lives.

The meek may well inherit the earth. Bugs may be the end of us. If so, we will have done it to ourselves.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

8. Bless your heart, Will

you're a true animal lover. Bats are very beneficial, even though they creep most people out. Our neighbor has a bat house and in the spring, we watch them do their beautiful ballet in the night sky, eating those damned mosquitoes. And the cats LOVE to watch them. They're like flying mice.

On edit: bat guano is good for the garden too!

[GOPisEvil]

2. Bats are a good thing. Not necessarily in a mall...

...but bats are good. I shudder to think what the skeeter population around here would be like if not for bats.

Not that I want them flying around in my local mall though...

[havocmom]

6. bats not likely to be mall rats

not enough in ther to interest them. They liked the elevator shaft cause it was a nice place to sleep all day and obviously had an exit to the sky so they could take flight in the evening to go preform their public service of munching a mess of bugs.

Used to love to catch a bus to the UA campus late afternoon in the summer. Find a nice place to sit and people watch as the day slowed down and then view the beautiful ballet of clouds of bats moving as one surgeing out from under the stadium bleachers. Wave after wave of them taking to the sky to protect us.

I have a couple who summer with us out in my veggie patch. There is an old basketball backstop on the garage wall and they sleep behind it. There is a rainbarrel close by. I have most of my barrels covered tightly with a window screen material device I invented. The one by the bats is left open and they drink from it.

Havocdad makes the yard inviting for birds and they are out in the dayime, feasting on bugs and the seeds from sunflowers he plants for them. There are nesting places and spots where they can rest, have a drink and enjoy some safety.

Between the birds and the night shift bats, our yard is not a buggy as everywhere else around here. This town has a serious skitter problem, but my veggie garden is a safe haven at night.

[MissMillie]

4. I'll bet they didn't find any mosquitoes! (n/t)

.

[Lars39]

5. Does Old Navy sell hazmat suits?

Bat guano is a concern to humans. :shrug:

[undergroundpanther]

9. Dracul

During a really bad snowstorm in '97 my neighbor shrieked,I ran out wondering what was going on,He said a bat had flown into the hallway of our apartment building.I asked Where,I saw He was clinging to the brick wall he was no bigger than a toad.He was just a little guy.My neighbor said he was going to kill him.I said hell no,I interviened.I disconnected him from the wall,as he did these supersonic shrieks that made my ears tweak but it didn't make sounds.He didn't attempt to bite me,He couldn't ayway I was holding him with his head poking out in a washcloth.I carried him to my apartment and shut the door.On the kitchen table I laid a towel I looked at him,nothing was broken,but he was badly chilled,skinny and majorly dehydrated. So I got some crickets and mealworms,(I had some reptile residents,a bunch of fish,a rat and two cats living in my house.)I added a bit of a stawberry,I ground it all up in the pet food processor I set aside for pet stuff..I added warm water loaded the bugs into a syringe and I fed him and he was really hungry.
I let him rest in my sports bra wrapped in a washcloth with his little red foxlike head poking out,where I tend to put small cold creatures rest so I can feed them and use my body heat to warm them.
He lived with us a good while.I got him a cage and outfitted a covered perch for him, a water drip and I fed him bugs and fruits.

He loved when my hubby played video games he'd fly in circles around his head and land on the speakers where the noize was coming from squeaking.He'd flit over to me,sometimes he'd hang from my shoulder and look up at me upside down,or he'd hang from the back of my shirt as I did dishes or cleaned house.The cats loved him but stayed a respectful distance,flying things blow thier minds.
Everytime we let him out of his cage he would test the room sounding off the walls than greet everyone in the house with a flyby squeak(even the cats and the fishtank)Than he'd perch on a favorite hanging lamp I had.I placed newspaper under it to catch his guano..He was very concientious about where he went.He never pooped on us or on anything but the paper or in a corner of his cage.

He lived with us for 3 months.When he was confused or had his claws caught in a piece of furniture he's squeak for us to get him loose. He became pretty adept at undoing things,he could let himself out of his cage but it was very difficult for him. the cage door was tied closed.

One day he got out by himself and I assume he got caught behind the wall unit.
I and couldn't find him.I called,no squeaks,I was ripping apart everything.The next day,nothing,I wondered if he got outside,winter was over ..I hoped for the best.
The 3rd day the cats woke me up,frantic.
Dracul was in the hallway crawling twords our bedroom with his folded wings,hooking the claws in the carpet dragging himself, exhausted dehydrated and a mess.I came over,and stooped down and he looked up at me. At first I thought was he injured.I wondered if the cats got rough with him,I looked and saw the cats had not hurt him.There were no signs of injury he didn't have any weird bruising his wings were fine,he was just exhausted.
So I warmed him,fed him watered him,he seemed OK all day,and he was OK as I put him in the cage that night..The next morning he was dead.

I cried my eyes out.

[Lars39]

10. Oh! The poor little thing!

I've known that bats have been misrepresented, but I had no idea they could act/be trainable. Sounds like you had really gotten attatched to him. :hug:

[geniph]

11. Poor little bat boy!

I've always had a soft spot for bats. Anything that eats its own weight in flying insects nightly gets an A+++++++ from me. What a sad story.

When I first saw the title of the thread, I assumed it meant Old Bats - maybe there'd been a sale at Gottschalk's or something.