((PKG)) THE BAT REHABILITATOR
((TRT: 04:48))
((Topic Banner: Bat Rehab))
((Reporter/Camera/Producer: Jeff Swicord))
((Map: Mount Solon, Virginia))
((Main character: 1 Female))
((NATS/Music))
((NATS: Leslie Sturges))
Here you go. Good job, buddy!
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
I was always interested in nature’s underdogs. When I was a
little kid, I did snakes and tadpoles and when I worked at the
zoo, I was the spider keeper. Bats are sort of a natural
outgrowth of that. They’re just fascinating animals.
And I think, I really got interested in them in college when I
started taking animal diversity and they were like, this is the
second largest group of mammals and look how cool they
are. And that really kicked off my interest.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
To do wildlife rehabilitation of anything, it’s like a calling. You
have to be pretty driven because you have sleepless nights
and nobody pays you to do it.
((NATS: Leslie Sturges))
We toss lettuce off the deck down to them and they think it’s
great fun.
((NATS))
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
So, this is how they are housed in these, they’re actually
zippered dog crates. They eat a lot and they go to the
bathroom a lot. So, she is right up there. So, you can see
she’s very dark. She’s small. We want people to understand
that bats are not evil or the harbinger of diseases.
Let me just qualify that. So far, with North American bats that
have been tested, nothing, there have been no positive hits
for COVID.
So, there is a lot of imagery associated with bats where they
appear to be like, you know, a four-foot [1.22 meters]
wingspan and giant canines and sometimes some flashing
red eyes to top it all off and, that’s not that.
We do school programs, libraries. So, we basically go out
and tell everybody how awesome bats are.
((NATS))
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
So, every time he opens his mouth, you can hear the click.
And that’s coming through the bat detector. They are the
major night-time predator of flying insects. The really cool
thing is to be out at night, and you can hear the bats even
when you can’t see them.
((NATS))
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
If the bats weren’t out there eating them, that would just be
this enormous biomass of insects that are just there eating
plants.
This one is a tricolored bat. There she is, hello! And they’re
called tricolors because their fur is supposedly banded in
three different places. I can only ever see two of the bands.
See how it is dark at the base and gets lighter toward the tip.
So, she was supposed to be a releasable bat, but it turned
out that she had sustained some damage to her tail and to
one of her thumbs. She won’t survive in the wild. Seems to,
oh sorry, hang on. It’s hard to manipulate a tiny bat and a
tiny meal worm with tweezers that are bigger than
everybody. Hang on, girlie. Let me find your bug. Hold on.
Here, she might be done. Like this is kind of new for her.
Can we do that again or you’ve just had it? Are you just
done? What’s the matter? Sorry, I didn’t mean to smack you
in the head there. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. No, she
might be done. Yeah, she is telling me she is done. Go on,
sweetie.
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
So, we don’t ever want to push them to a point where what is
going on, you know, me trying to give her a mealworm and
everything, is just so negative, she was starting to nip. And I
don’t want to take her to that point because I want her to be
happy about interacting with people. Not people writ large,
with a handler so she can do education programs.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((NATS: Leslie Sturges))
I’m just going to check under here. It would be unusual if
anybody was under here. And they are not.
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
So, we are in the flight cage. This is where they come to
acclimate to flying if they’ve been in rehab.
((NATS: Leslie Sturges))
And nobody there.
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
And there is actually insects that come in because we run a
UV [ultra violet] light. And then they can practice on their
own. They learn how to feed themselves and they learn how
to do all the maneuvers they need. And then, there is a set
of double doors right on the back side of the flight cage. We
just open those at night when they are ready to go and close
them at dawn. And our last release, which was just a few
days ago, we had 18 leave the very first night that we
opened the doors. Always the priority is release and get
them back to the wild.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((TRT: 04:48))
((Topic Banner: Bat Rehab))
((Reporter/Camera/Producer: Jeff Swicord))
((Map: Mount Solon, Virginia))
((Main character: 1 Female))
((NATS/Music))
((NATS: Leslie Sturges))
Here you go. Good job, buddy!
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
I was always interested in nature’s underdogs. When I was a
little kid, I did snakes and tadpoles and when I worked at the
zoo, I was the spider keeper. Bats are sort of a natural
outgrowth of that. They’re just fascinating animals.
And I think, I really got interested in them in college when I
started taking animal diversity and they were like, this is the
second largest group of mammals and look how cool they
are. And that really kicked off my interest.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
To do wildlife rehabilitation of anything, it’s like a calling. You
have to be pretty driven because you have sleepless nights
and nobody pays you to do it.
((NATS: Leslie Sturges))
We toss lettuce off the deck down to them and they think it’s
great fun.
((NATS))
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
So, this is how they are housed in these, they’re actually
zippered dog crates. They eat a lot and they go to the
bathroom a lot. So, she is right up there. So, you can see
she’s very dark. She’s small. We want people to understand
that bats are not evil or the harbinger of diseases.
Let me just qualify that. So far, with North American bats that
have been tested, nothing, there have been no positive hits
for COVID.
So, there is a lot of imagery associated with bats where they
appear to be like, you know, a four-foot [1.22 meters]
wingspan and giant canines and sometimes some flashing
red eyes to top it all off and, that’s not that.
We do school programs, libraries. So, we basically go out
and tell everybody how awesome bats are.
((NATS))
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
So, every time he opens his mouth, you can hear the click.
And that’s coming through the bat detector. They are the
major night-time predator of flying insects. The really cool
thing is to be out at night, and you can hear the bats even
when you can’t see them.
((NATS))
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
If the bats weren’t out there eating them, that would just be
this enormous biomass of insects that are just there eating
plants.
This one is a tricolored bat. There she is, hello! And they’re
called tricolors because their fur is supposedly banded in
three different places. I can only ever see two of the bands.
See how it is dark at the base and gets lighter toward the tip.
So, she was supposed to be a releasable bat, but it turned
out that she had sustained some damage to her tail and to
one of her thumbs. She won’t survive in the wild. Seems to,
oh sorry, hang on. It’s hard to manipulate a tiny bat and a
tiny meal worm with tweezers that are bigger than
everybody. Hang on, girlie. Let me find your bug. Hold on.
Here, she might be done. Like this is kind of new for her.
Can we do that again or you’ve just had it? Are you just
done? What’s the matter? Sorry, I didn’t mean to smack you
in the head there. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. No, she
might be done. Yeah, she is telling me she is done. Go on,
sweetie.
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
So, we don’t ever want to push them to a point where what is
going on, you know, me trying to give her a mealworm and
everything, is just so negative, she was starting to nip. And I
don’t want to take her to that point because I want her to be
happy about interacting with people. Not people writ large,
with a handler so she can do education programs.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((NATS: Leslie Sturges))
I’m just going to check under here. It would be unusual if
anybody was under here. And they are not.
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
So, we are in the flight cage. This is where they come to
acclimate to flying if they’ve been in rehab.
((NATS: Leslie Sturges))
And nobody there.
((Leslie Sturges, Founder, Bat World NOVA))
And there is actually insects that come in because we run a
UV [ultra violet] light. And then they can practice on their
own. They learn how to feed themselves and they learn how
to do all the maneuvers they need. And then, there is a set
of double doors right on the back side of the flight cage. We
just open those at night when they are ready to go and close
them at dawn. And our last release, which was just a few
days ago, we had 18 leave the very first night that we
opened the doors. Always the priority is release and get
them back to the wild.
((NATS/MUSIC))