Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies, and the real answers:
Question: I really don’t know who to go to for this question, and I’m hoping you can help. Each year around April or May, about 20-plus female bats come to my house to live in the eaves. They don’t bother me, and I’m okay with them coming here. The problem is, this seems to be their maternity ward, as every year tiny baby bats fall to their deaths when they drop from the eaves of the house two floors to the driveway below. Last year 19 died, and the year before 18 died. It makes me so sad. I’m afraid we’re losing a whole generation of the little pollinators. I know that they only produce one pup a year. I tried putting up a bat house, but even though I spread guano around it, they preferred the eaves. Is there anything I can do to help them? Thanks for whatever you can do to help.
My answer: While living in a real dump of a house in college, we had several plagues, including black flies and bats. I rescued the bats by gently trapping them between two tennis racquet heads and then flipping them outside. Worked like a charm.
Real answer: This is a problem I’ve never heard of before, but apparently it does happen on occasion.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission had some good recommendations, via spokesperson Anna Gurney.
“It sounds like the reader is experiencing a maternity colony of bats roosting in the eaves of their home,” Gurney said via email. “This general behavior is common in the spring and summer for certain bat species, and they typically return to the same roost site to rear their young every year.”
Here in western North Carolina, Gurney said, our most common bats for roosting in or on buildings are big brown bats (scientific name: Eptesicus fuscus) and Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis).
“Each spring and summer, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission receives reports of bat pups falling from maternity roosts, and these incidences often coincide with drastic temperature swings or extremely hot or cold spells,” Gurney said. “This can also happen if a roost becomes overcrowded.”
Allow me to pause to note that while some folks fear bats, they are beneficial in that they eat a ton of insects, including mosquitoes, and they are pollinators. So we need a healthy bat population, which involves helping the babies not fall to their untimely deaths.
“One way to help the bat colony is to install a pup catcher beneath the roost to provide a landing pad for fallen pups until an adult returns the pup to the roost,” Gurney said.
You can find instructions on how to make a pup catcher on the Bat World Sanctuary website, which includes a good five-minute video.
I encourage you to visit the site and watch the video, but in a nutshell it explains how to use inexpensive polypropylene mesh and zip ties to make a pocket for the pups to fall into. You’ll want to get mesh with really small holes — about one-sixth of an inch — so they don’t get their wrists stuck.
The baby bats’ natural inclination is to climb, so they’ll use the mesh to climb back to mama. The video also notes that it helps to slope the mesh if possible to make climbing easier.
Additionally, the bats will use the mesh to get out of the roost and cool off, which helps prevent overheating. Pretty fascinating stuff, honestly, and cheap to build.
But I will caution my reader about this, as it sounds like their house is two stories. So you might need to hire someone to go up that ladder.
“Another way to help the bat colony is to ensure the bat house is installed to maximize the chances of it being used,” Gurney said.
Gurney offered these pointers:
- Install the bat house on a building or pole instead of a tree. Bat houses on trees are more vulnerable to predation and can be too shaded.
- The bat house should be at least 12 feet off the ground, but closer to 20 feet is even better.
- The bat house should be installed in an open area, not too close to any trees, which can shade out the bat house or provide access from predators.
- The bat house should be installed in an area that receives sunlight during the early part of the day, not late in the day, which can cause overheating.
- The bat house should measure at least 24 inches high and 16 inches wide because smaller bat houses are less thermally stable and can lead to overheating.
- More tips can be found on the Bat Conservation International website.
If you have more questions about bats roosting in buildings, or other wildlife questions, Gurneysaid the North Carolina Wildlife helpline is available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday-Friday, at HWI@ncwildlife.org or 866-318-2401.
The Wildlife Resources page on bats is also fascinating. For instance:
“North American bats have a major impact on controlling insect populations that are considered agricultural pests. They save the corn industry over $1 billion annually in pest control. A nursing female bat may consume almost her entire body weight in insects in one night. Recently a protein found in vampire bat saliva has been used to develop clot-busting medication to aid stroke victims.”
I know some folks fear bats because of rabies. The risks are real but somewhat overblown.
“Despite misconceptions, rabies is not very common in bats,” the WRC site states. “Less than 3 percent of bats tested in North Carolina have the virus.”
Still, the commission encourages people to use caution when you encounter a bat.
Question: Can you please list the books banned by the Buncombe County School Board from all high schools? Somehow I missed reading or hearing about the specific books. I’m wondering who else might have missed the list also.
My answer: I’m not gonna lie — in high school I avoided reading extra books like the plague. That might’ve contributed to my perfect 3.0 grade point average.
Real answer: BCS spokesperson Ken Ulmer sent me some helpful links that answer this question and explain the policy. I’ll also note that Mountain Xpress had a good article on this on March 8.
In a nutshell, while 10 books at Enka High School’s media center have been challenged, just one has been removed, “Tricks,” by Ellen Hopkins. The book addresses teen sex and sex trafficking, among other issues.
Books have not been removed countywide.
First, you can find the school system’s policy on books and potential banning on this webpage titled, “Parental Inspection of and Objection to Instructional Materials.” Parents do have the ability to examine teaching materials and formally object if they feel the material is inappropriate.
The school system’s District Media and Technology Advisory Committee (MTAC) studies the challenged books and makes recommendations. You can read recaps of the meetings in which the challenged books were discussed here and here.
I’ll offer this recap for the internet searching averse:
In the Jan. 5 MTAC memo, the board had a request for review of four allegedly objectionable books that remained in the Enka High School media center. They were: “Tricks,” “Perfect,” “Sold,” and “Water for Elephants.” The committee ensured that at least five readers were designated for each book.
The committee recommended that “Perfect,” “Sold” and “Water for Elephants” should remain in the Enka High library, but that “Tricks” should be removed. Regarding “Tricks,” the committee stated:
“While the committee appreciates that sex trafficking is a relevant and timely issue, it felt that the book was not well-balanced in its portrayal of the topic. The committee’s opinion is that the book normalizes, if not glorifies, unhealthy sexual behavior among teens. The overall tone of the book was extremely dark and disturbing, without a balanced emotional perspective. The book also includes an excessive amount of explicit content, leading us to question its appropriateness for high school readers, especially without guidance.”
In a Feb. 8 memo, the committee recap stated four parents challenged 10 books at Enka High on Nov. 6, 2023.
“Per policy guidelines, all 10 books were reviewed by the school’s MTAC team,” the memo states. “Of the 10 books challenged, none were removed from the school’s media center; the decision was made to retain them in the collection. Results of the review were then shared with the four parents who made the objections.”
The nine books that remained in the media center (“Tricks” had been removed) were:
- “More Happy Than Not”
- “Beyond Magenta”
- “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”
- “Thirteen Reasons Why”
- “The Hate U Give”
- “The Kite Runner” (graphic novel)
- “Shine”
- “Go Ask Alice”
- “Looking for Alaska”
The committee followed the same process, with at least five readers assigned each text.
Asheville Watchdogis a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Got a question? Send it to John Boyle at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org or 828-337-0941. His Answer Man columns appear each Tuesday and Friday.TheWatchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go toavlwatchdog.org/donate.
