Bat maternity season is here. During the next four months, state law prohibits you from getting bats out of your home.
- State law prohibits removal of bats during maternity season
- It's to protect the offspring, experts say
- Bats are important to the ecosystem, eating insects like mosquitoes
Using exclusion devices like one-way trap doors for bats are prohibited until after Aug. 14, when bat maternity season is over.
Bat expert David Joles, of Arrow Environmental Services, said it’s to protect the offspring.
“They’re relying on the mother to go out and find insects and come back and help feed them and they also have to be taught how to feed on their own,” Joles said.
The reason bats are protected during this maternity season is because they are a major part of our ecosystem.
“They eat up to about 70 percent of their body weight in insects every night. One of the biggest concerns right now are mosquitoes. That’s one of their biggest diets,” Joles said.
Joles said people can try building a bat house to see if it diverts the bat away from their home, but he said they’re usually not effective during bat maternity season.
“If they’re in an attic and they have young, there’s nothing that’s going to keep them from going back to try to take care of them,” Joles said.
While living with the bats in your home, bats recommended seeking expert advice for removing the droppings, especially if there’s a lot of it.
“Bat feces carries, the biggest one is histoplasmosis. Very serious. Very serious if it gets in your blood system. You have to be very careful when dealing with feces from bats,” Joles said.
Some ways to figure out if bats are in your home are:
1. Look for bats in your attic during the day when they’re roosting
2. Watch for bats to emerge from your home at sunset
3. Look for a crevice the size of your thumb around the roofline, also brown smudges near the entrance hole.