Let's talk about bats, bab-y.

[eohartman]

Woah. I just got invited to speak in front of a class full of veterinarians on bats! We need more vets to become wildlife-friendly in GA, and this one day a week, 10 week long class is designed to make vets and vet techs more familiar with handling wildlife and doing triage on them so they'll be more willing to help us wildlife rehabbers. Most vets shy away from bats (there's a huge liability if you have a rabies vector species in your vet clinic), but hopefully some will learn something out of my talk and be more comfortable handling bats and doing general triage on them.

I can't believe I just agreed to speak in front of veterinarians! The class is three hours long, but I definitly won't be speaking for that long. I'm supposed to give general facts and information about bats, talk about RVS licensing in Georgia, then discuss handling, feeding, and housing for them. And show them a bat. :-) I'm so excited, and nervous! I'll be talking to vets like I know more than they do. lol

Comments

[chasingsirens.livejournal.com]

That is so cool! Go you. ^_^ Best of luck!

[lizzie.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[twitterpatted.livejournal.com]

That is really awesome! Kinda scary at the same time but more awesome than scary! You will do great, no doubt!

I thought about you the other day when Pete and I were leaving Denny's because the tree's we infested with Bats. And I use the word "infested" because there were so many of them. Had I had a better camera, I would have attempted to take a picture, sans flash, of course!

And I haven't forgotten about the e-mail, I have been a little distant lately. I will get it out to you soon but it does sound like you are doing better, minus the distance part of things!

And did I miss a memo somewhere, did Dustin officially propose or are you planning your wedding just because???? I don't think I would have missed a memo like that but you never know these days!

[lizzie.livejournal.com]

How cool about the bats!

No, we haven't gotten engaged yet, though he promises it's coming soon. We're going ring shopping again this weekend, though! Even though we're not officially engaged, I'm beginning the unofficiaul planning. It'll be the fall of next year, when the heat dies down enough in hotlanta for us to have an outdoor wedding!

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

woohoo! Yay for bats, and for education about bats.

[lizzie.livejournal.com]

I'm so excited! But I'm nervous cause I'll be talking to vets. These are people that have been through years of vet school, and they know so much more than I do! I'm just hoping none of them know very much on bat husbandry. :-)

[charshark.livejournal.com]

Good luck on your speech!

Now, I don't know that much about bats, but I've heard they very rarely actually get rabies. That's true, isn't it? Also, even if bats happened to get rabies, they don't attack people that often, right? Educate me! ;p

[lizzie.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I know I'll have to prepare for it (it's a lot different than giving talks to kids, where I normally just go in there and wing it. ha ha), but I think I can pull it off. :-)

You're right, bats very rarily actually contract rabies. It's not as common as most people think. The best estimate is that 1 out of every 200 bats (or .5%) contract the disease. Once they get rabies, they can show symptoms in two different ways- one way is to become very docile and lethargic, while the other form makes them agressive. When the bat is agressive, it'll bite itself and everything that it comes in contact with. Typically, a rabid bat only bites a human if it was picked up or disturbed by the person, not because it'll fly out of a cave and so searching for a victim. :-)

I've been rehabbing bats since I was 14 (I'm nearly 22 now), and I deal with roughly 40 bats a year. I can count the number of rabid bats I've had on two hands. And I only come in contact with the sick and orphaned bats, so my "sampling" is already skewed in the direction of rabies. Every bat I get with rabies I immediatly kill, of course.

It's so frustrating when people find an injured bat and immediately think "It must have rabies". That's usually not the case! It's so nice to hear from someone who at least knows a little bit about bats and rabies! :-)

[charshark.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, you'll definitely pull it off! =)

It's horror stories that make the rat rabies assumption live on. Although, in Stephen King's book, Cujo, he got bit by a rabbit instead of a bat, which was interesting. They assumed it was a bat, though. =\

I remember there was an injured baby bat on the sidewalk in front of my parents' house one time and we tried to help him, but I don't know if we did exactly. He was gone where we let him go, though, so I hope he lived.

How did you get into rehabbing bats?

[lizzie.livejournal.com]

Back when my brothers and I were little, my mom stayed home with us all day and didn't have a job. She heard about a program at Zoo Atlanta for "bat moms", and she decided it would be a good thing to do. So she went to a bat class at the zoo taught by Sue Barnard, and my mom became a bat mom. She helped rescue orphaned bats every summer and raise them. Mom did this until I was probably 8 or so, then she got a full-time job and didn't have the time anymore. Six years later, I decided I wanted to do bat rehab myself- my mom had done it, and I had grown up around baby bats and I felt a strong connection to helping animals. So I started taking in orphaned bats myself. A year later, I got my pre-exposure rabies shots and I lied about my age to the Department of Natural Resources and got legally certified to rehab bats (you have to be 18, and I was only 15). Since then I've been raising orphaned bats and rehabbing injured ones. I've also taken on other wild animals, like bunnies, squirrels, possums, raccoons, and even a fox and armadillo (I was just babysitting those for another rehabber, though), but my main love is still bats. I'm one of three people in Georgia who rehabs bats, so the demand is pretty high. :-) Occasionally I'll mention Sue in my lj- she's the woman who first introduced my mom to bats, and has now become my bat mentor and good friend. As I've grown older, my conversations with Sue have gotten longer- now we'll spend a few hours on the phone talking. Unfortunately, she's got terminal cancer, and that occasionally depresses me.

So that's the shortened version of the story! :-) I should dig up some pictures of me from when I was young and had a bat on my shirt. It shows I've loved them ever since I was little!

[charshark.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting story. I'm glad you get to do something that brings you a lot of joy and something that helps animals out. I'm sorry to hear about Sue's health, though.

And yes, you should do some picture digging!

[cynicalsiren.livejournal.com]

How exciting! :D Congratulations!

[kudzu.livejournal.com]

I have a strange request: Next time you have a bat, could you grab some ink and take a footprint of it on paper and mail it to me? I want a bat footprint tattoo, but wouldn't know what it looks like because, well, they don't usually go walking around on their feet in dust or mud now do they?

[lizzie.livejournal.com]

Sure! It might be awhile before I get my next bat, but I'll try and remember to do that for you. What a neat idea!

[kudzu.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! And if you know anyone else who might do the favor too, pass it on! I'd like to get as many different species as possible!

[lizzie.livejournal.com]

Sure, I'll pass the request along!

[kudzu.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much!