1 Batty Bat

I woke up at 4:30am Sunday morning to what I thought was a strong wind brushing past the blinds in the Pipestone, MN loft bedroom we're renting for the summer. I didn't think much of it until a minute later with the most monotone expression, Nathan sighed, "There's a bat in here."

My first thought was not one of disgust or horror. In fact, I think bats are pretty cool. No, my first thought was, "great, now we're going to have to get rabies shots". When I was getting my shots for going to Tanzania last year, one of the recommended doses was your first three rabies shots. Recommended, but not mandatory and luckily, Dan, the very cute immunizations nurse at Olmsted Medical Center readily talked me out of getting them. If I had gotten bitten by anything, I could always fly to the nearest Western Hospital (by the way, that was half a continent away in South Africa) and get all of the shots at once. "However", he said, "if you ever wake up with a bat in your room, go and get the shots."

I've never forgotten that and here I am in just that situation. As I'm wondering if he only said that because African bats are more dangerous, I decided I would hide under the comforter. The bedroom has a very low ceiling that curves and the bat, needing a bit more space, was flying about a foot above us. Nathan somehow got up, so I was stuck in the room with the circling bat hoping he could get it to leave so I could come up for air. He didn't do it fast enough because I suddenly felt it brush my head. Then the deafening silence of the lack of constant wing beats that we'd been hearing for the past few minutes. "Nathan!! I think it's near my head!" I decided to move and sure enough, it took off...right off my head!

After several minutes Nathan came back having banished the bat to an attic crawl space closed tight by a munchkin-sized door. Good! Now we can just wait for the bat to die and get it tested for rabies!

I did a little research the next day. Sure enough, even in the United States, if you are in the room with a bat for any period of time where you are not fully conscious, you need to assume the bat has bitten you. It probably hasn't, but bat bites can be small and pain-free, so you may not have noticed those tiny vampire teeth sinking into your neck and you might not see the mark. Only 1% of all bats actually have rabies and there was a very small chance one of us had been bitten. The verdict - if you don't have the bat, go and get your rabies shots within three days. Bummer!

I decided that since I already had to get shots, I had nothing to lose by trying to find the stupid bat and capture it for testing. I went down to the hardware store and bought some thick gloves, then decided that the empty juice pitcher would be the perfect place to imprison the bat. I put on long sleeves, a baseball hat (like that's going to protect me), the gloves, and grabed the pitcher and flashlight.

I winced as I opened up the door - so far so good, no bats flew out. The crawl space was actually quite spacious and recently painted white, so it was easy to find the one tiny flying mouse in the corner sleeping like it should during the day. I got two steps in and decided to call the Pipestone County Sheriff's Office instead.

They sent out a really nice officer, equiped with a net and great resolve. They extract bats from houses all of the time apparently and he fearlessly went into the crawl space and came out with the bat in his hand. I asked him where to take it for testing and he said, "I don't know, we've always just let the bats go!" The internet had scared me too much to let the poor thing go, so we stuck it in an empty gatorade bottle and off he went.

I drove the bat-in-a-bottle to Pipestone National Monument for some help in figuring out what to do. The poor thing was so cute and so very scared - I really felt bad for it. After showing it off to some kids in the Visitor's Center we figured out that the local vet would take it in for testing. We dropped it off.

"Great!" I was thinking all night that the bat would be tested, it wouldn't have rabies, we wouldn't have to get the shots, then the vet could release it from its harrowing journey to meet up with its family once again. Later that night I asked Nathan if he made sure to tell the vet we wanted her to release it when done, Nathan said, "I think they're going to euthanize it." WHAT?! I tried to get him to call the vet and make sure she knew to let it go, but he just laughed at me and asked, "Don't you know what the test for rabies is? I think they need a brain sample."

Again, I consulted the internet and then cried for the next 30 minutes. I can't believe that we actually paid someone to kill a bat, just to avoid the pain and side-effect of a few shots. I'm still pretty sad about this.

However, we did avoid the shots as I found out yesterday that I do not have rabies. Michael Scott would be proud.

I do owe the earth one bat. If anyone's got a bat I can save, let me know.