Life and Bats
Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV) is in the news at the moment following a recent death, and it's got me reflecting on my own experiences with bats - experiences that, looking back, I'm incredibly lucky to have survived.
I have encountered bats in need of help 3 times in my life, I’ll tell them in chronological order below but let me start with this: There have been 4 (that's including this most recent one in the news) reported ABLV cases in Australia and all of them have resulted in death. A 100% mortality rate. ABLV is contracted by coming in contact with infected bat saliva. The virus enters the body most commonly via a bite or scratch. It can also enter via your eyes, mouth, or pre-existing open wounds. Bats clean themselves a bit like cats so their bodies are potentially covered in their own saliva.
If you see a bat in need of assistance, call a professional. I can not stress this enough. Remember the 100% mortality rate. There is no treatment. Alright, without further ado, my stories:
So my first bat rescue was when I was about 8 or 9 years old. My childhood home was in a cul-de-sac, at the end of which was a footpath that led to my primary school. I was walking home one afternoon and ran into some kids on that footpath, right at the end, a stone's throw away from my house. They were standing in a circle around something. That something turned out to be a baby flying fox. How it got there we’ll never know but now that I know more about them it definitely should have been with its mother still.
I ran home to tell my mum about this poor baby bat. She got a bath towel and came over with me to help. My mum has always been really caring to all animals, her empathy definitely paved the way for mine and already had by that age.
I don't remember if it was her or I that wrapped up the baby bat but I suspect it was probably my mum as she took charge of the situation and disbanded the circle of kids.
I held it in the towel while mum went through the kitchen cupboards looking for a dropper so we could hydrate it. I remember just staring at its little face, its tiny exhausted eyes just staring back at me. Mum had told me to be very careful not to let it bite me as they “had diseases”. I don't think she even understood just how fatal a bite could be.
We dropped little bits of water near the bat's mouth and the little sweetheart drank a lot. I remember holding it in the car, still offering bits of water while dad drove us to the closest vet (link) that also cared for wildlife. It wasn't trying to break free by any means but it had definitely perked up a bit since cooling down and having a drink.
Here’s the wild part. I remember trying to pet its little head and it bit my finger. It was too small to break the skin, in fact because it was a baby it only had tiny “milk teeth” which aren't really built for breaking skin. First bullet dodged. But not knowing that I merely had to get some of its saliva in my eye or mouth I suspect the second bullet I dodged (though I won’t count it) was not putting that bitten finger in my eye or mouth before washing it. In all likelihood, the bat just didn't have the virus. I wasn't stupid, I was just a kid and it's unlikely I did wash my hands before rubbing my eye or biting a nail.
Baby flying fox, nestled into mum’s wing
My next encounter with a bat in need, I was older. More cautious but still entirely unaware of how serious the danger was. I found an adult flying fox in the front yard (still living at home with my parents. I'm probably about 13 now). It was trying to crawl across the gravel but was pretty tired and green ants were already beginning to overwhelm it.
I got a wooden broom pole and put it near the bat. The bat latched on and when I picked up the pole the bat hung, like bats do. It kept twitching and readjusting because it was still being bitten by the remaining green ants determined not to let go of their catch.
I hung the pole up and offered some water. The bat drank. I then meticulously and slowly plucked all the ants off the bat. It just hung there, watching me but letting me. It seemed sweet, like it knew I was helping and at the time I truly believed that. But realistically and in hindsight it was probably just too unwell to do anything and I wasn't actually hurting it so it just hung.
After delicately plucking off all the ants (without gloves on I might add) I left it there for a couple hours to rest. When the sun was going down I took the pole over to a palm tree and put the bat end near the tree. The bat shuffled its way to the palm tree, grabbed on and climbed to the top. It worked its way over to a palm frond to hang from before dropping into flight and going on its way. Bye bye friend.
This was my second dodged bullet. Though I thought I was being careful at the time, I still didn't use gloves and touched its fur (remember cleaning like cats). My face was also inches away from its body the whole time I was getting ants off it. Had it freaked out and tried to fly or just throw a wing out I absolutely would have been scratched and easily bitten. Again I was just a kid, older and a bit wiser but still totally unaware of the danger.
The third one was a microbat and only a couple years ago. I stumbled across it lying on the concrete in the sun, I thought it was dead. I put a cloth over it to pick it up without touching it and heard the faintest squeaking. Oh my goodness, it was alive. I kept it wrapped in the cloth for the journey home, where I hung it from a hanging pot plant under my house. I got the little dropper I had and offered water, for it's tiny size it drank a lot!
Tiny microbat hanging from the chain of my hanging pot plant.
I put a hollow log (only about 40cm long) on a ladder near it, just touching the pot plant it was hanging from and intended to leave it there and check in at night but as I was making sure the log was steady I saw a mite running across the bat's wing. Eurgh, I couldn't help myself - I got the long tweezers (still no gloves mind you) and spent a minute waiting for the mite to reappear before plucking it off. The bat showed no signs of being particularly worried about me doing this so I felt safe. But I absolutely wasn't being safe at all.
I left it be. I went down and checked in a couple hours later, it was hanging inside the log. Tiny lil thing, like it was in a big cave. The next time I checked in was after sunset and it was gone.
My third encounter I should have and did know better. But some stupid overwhelming urge to help an animal in need got the better of me and I need to get better at that. Or at the very least convince a doctor to give me the injections carers and people that work with bats get as it seems I'll just keep choosing to literally risk my life to help them.
Some studies show that less than 1% of wild bats have ABLV at any given time, however “while the infection prevalence in the wild‐caught cohort is evidently low, the significantly higher infection prevalence in rescued bats in urban settings represents a clear and present public health significance”¹. So if you're encountering a bat on the ground, that's very bizarre and it's likely sick therefore it's likely that the bat may have ABLV.
It's funny to say “I'm lucky to be here” when talking about giving dehydrated wildlife some water. It seems so innocent, so far from life threatening. But alas, I'm lucky to be here. And I promise I will be far, far more careful if I ever encounter a bat in need again.
References:
--- ¹ Field, H. E. (2018). Evidence of Australian bat lyssavirus infection in diverse Australian bat taxa. Zoonoses and Public Health, 65(6), 742–748. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6249124/
