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Bat baby boom makes trappers batty
Ken Suarez reports
LAKELAND, Fla. - As a wildlife trapper, life has gotten pretty busy for Dustin Hooper lately. The new crop of baby bats has arrived.
That’s a big problem if a colony is nesting in your house or apartment complex.
A few weeks ago, Hooper, who owns All Creatures Wildlife Control in Lakeland, worked on a building in Bartow that was overrun with bats.
“Every bit of 2,000 bats," he recalled. “Two sides of the building, bats were just coming out.”
Under state law, trappers are allowed to put a net over the holes that bats use to get into a building. The netting allows bats to get out but not back in.
Hooper says frequently, that doesn’t solve the problem. He says the bats just fly over to the next closest building and make new nests there.
He says he has a better idea.
“Allow the trappers to capture the bats, re-locate them to the Green Swamp or outside the limits in the country,” Hooper said.
But Florida Fish and Wildlife officials say that wouldn’t work for a number of different reasons,the first one being that it's illegal.
Additionally, bats have a razor-sharp homing instinct.
“You can take them to another place, but they’ll likely come back to that original location,” said FWC spokeswoman Carli Segelson.
Segelson also says if the bats are carrying rabies or another disease, they would spread it to the new location.
For more information about living with bats, visit myfwc.com/conservation/you-conserve/wildlife/bats/