AIBU to have kept an injured bat in the fridge?

[thatbatwoman]

Name changed for this obvs, but having seen 2 bat threads in recent days, I thought I'd share my tale...and to show how times have really changed!

In the early 90's we lived out in the stix and had what was considered then, a rare (ish) colony of Natturas bats in the attic. Every year the Bat Man would put a tarp down in the attic and at the end of the season, would come back to monitor the droppings, see if they'd increased! We would often see random men with binoculars sitting on the wall outside the house, eager to spot them.

One day, I looked out of the window to see a bat circling in daylight and then fall to the ground. I rang the Bat Man,who gave me the following advice to care for it til he arrived:
1)Scoop it up into a box (i can't remember if I even wore gloves!)
2)Add a pair of tights or stockings
3) Add dog food, if we had any (which we did)
4And then..........take all the food out and...PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just did it without question and can remember peeping inside the fridge at one point before he arrived and seeing it crawling over the side walls!!!!

Having read the last 2 bat / rabies threads, I seriously questioned my recollection of what was really a very clear event. I was much younger and a bit daft. So I clicked the AI mode last night and asked whether this was likely back then....and indeed, this would have been the advice to care for a grounded bat in the early 90's!!!!!!

I guess my question would be AIBU....to have put a bat in my fridge?????!!!

This is such a bonkers thread it's amazing 🤣. I'm a wildlife expert and I've never heard the advice to put a bat in the fridge. They are mammals and therefore regulate their own temperature, the advice is to keep them somewhere quiet and dark until they go to a rehabilitation centre or vet.

Some tortoise species (Mediterranean) hibernate, not all species do so please never put a tortoise in the fridge unless you are following advice for the specific species. Best advice is also to take them to see a vet first for a checkup to ensure they are healthy and that they have beat chance of surviving hibernation. It's a very costly process for an animal so they need to be in good health.

Oh and OP we've all done bonkers stuff trying to help animals. I once vaulted a fence whilst 7 months pregnant to rescue an injured fox. I've never had much common sense.

On rabies - we are technically "rabies free" in the UK however you should still be careful and not handle injured bats except with protective gloves. If you do get bitten seek medical advice immediately.

Hell no to touching a fruit bat (flying fox) in Australia. They carry lyssavirus. It’s 100% fatal in humans. Only vaccinated wildlife carers should be touching them, whether the bat is dead or alive. Lyssavirus is similar to rabies.

Ideally you’d have a small separate fridge for the tortoise! I’d not like to have a tortoise in with my food - hibernating or not!

I would think the tortoise, or the bat for that matter, would eat the food in the fridge.
They both like fruit, don't they? And tortoises would eat lettuce and other produce. The only issue would be the dark. 🔦

@Amandatelly

My godfather had his feet cut off by his combine harvester in the late 60s/ early 70s in Pembrokeshire. He survived but had false legs.

You can get a dead bat pack from https://www.bats.org.uk/advice/found-a-dead-bat and get it sent off to see if it has rabies - rare in the UK. We found a small dead bat in our garden but double bagged it and binned it. I have requested a tube as there are bats roosting in our neighbours house.

I would just love to work somewhere where my job title was Batman!
my sister did a masters dissertation on bat nightly travel patterns so spent several nights using a portable sonar chasing bats across the moors.

I found a tiny injured pipistrelle bat in our front garden a few years ago. I put it in a plastic box with some water in a milk bottle cap as they advised, and put it in the airing cupboard (heating wasn't on as it was summer). It hadn't moved by the next morning so I took it to a local bat rescue lady who was fascinating and had so much knowledge. She said it was very malnourished and probably wouldn't make it but I felt better for doing something. They fly around our house late evening and make the most amazing sounds.

And hendra virus is terrifying.

But, you couldn't have known you'd need one.
Who would ever think, I'm going to keep a second fridge just in case I need to hold an injured bat for the Bat Man?
And you were a child anyway. You couldn't be expected to be prepared in that manner.

On the whole, Australia is terrifying

A few years ago, we came into our workplace to find a roosting 🦇 on the wall. No idea how it got into the building. We couldn't leave it to find its own way out as we have to secure the building at the end of the day, so I rang the Bat Conservation Trust. They told us how to safely move the bat . They told us that whoever removed the bat should wear a mask in case they gave the bat COVID. They also advised us to seek medical attention if the bat bit or scratched anyone due to the rabies risk.
However, I did note that they were far more worried about the bat catching COVID than they were about one of us getting rabies!

You were lucky it wasn't an injured fox.

The one in our fridge ate all the ham and the cheese, licked the butter and drank half a bottle of wine. We won't do that again!

Aren't fridges airtight? How long was it in there? Would run out of oxygen eventually.

There are some batshit threads on here this week........ 😬

Bats are quite small. I doubt they need much air. But, I believe OP mentioned opening the fridge to peek at it anyway. And someone else, I think it was the tortoise rescuer, mentioned opening the fridge occasionally to re-fresh the air.

What were the tights or stockings for??? When you said “add” did you mean put it over the box lid? Why stockings/tights and not elastic bands?

When you said you added stockings to the box, I have a vision of the bat sliding them on “do you like what you see?” 😂😂

I was worried about it suffocating in there, hence why I was opening the fridge slightly...and because I was curious. He came out pretty swiftly considering we were quite rural (maybe had a Batmobile?!) I don't really recall exactly how long it was in there, but it wasn't ages.

Ohhhh... good question! I thought it was to put something soft in the box to cushion the bat, like a pillow.
Your idea makes it a breathable trap. Got it.

We had a bat trapped in our dining room when I was a kid in the late 90s and the advice given was wrap it in a towel and take it outside I remember clearly my dad waiting for it to hang upside down off a picture.. sneaking up and wrapping it in a towel... And the dog going of it!!
None of us got rabies!

I think also there's a difference in the level of risk between finding an injured bat/a baby bat and picking it up and having a disorientated, aggressive bat flying around in the middle of the day unafraid of people. The first type would be incredibly unlikely to have rabies because it's almost a random sample of a bat and rabies is so rare. The second example (a bat acting in a way normally only associated with rabies) is much more likely to be a risk.
I would still wear gloves when handling injured wildlife to be on the safe side though. But I would be less scared than I would be of a crazy bat. In the same way id be less scared of a random dog hit by a car than a dog that was foaming at the mouth and charging about.

I had to kinda stretch and then roll the stockings back, in order to make a little tunnel!

@thatbatwoman I rang the Bat Man,who gave me the following advice to care for it til he arrived:

I'm fucking 😂at this line.
Seriously I think anyone who helps animals in need are heros.

Edited to add I love bats.