>>The Wildlife Center of Virginia is one of the world's leading teaching and research hospitals for wildlife and conservation medicine.

Each year the center provides state-of-the-art veterinary and rehabilitative care for nearly 3,000 wild animals with one goal in mind, returning the animal to its natural habitat.

(dramatic upbeat music) >>Because the majority of North American bat species are colonial bats, places like this are critical habitat.

Caves, caverns, and even old mine shafts provide the essential home for many bat species.

Now today, I'm visiting the Grand Caverns Cave at Grand Caverns Regional Park in Grottoes, Virginia.

And originally more than 100 years ago, when this cave was first developed, people came simply to marvel at the subterranean splendor that is in this cave.

But now we understand that the cave is far more important, not just as a tourist attraction, but as a major component of the ecosystem and of the life cycle of the bat.

Today, humans still come and go and are visited but parts of the cave are set aside to remain wild, where the bats can continue to live out their life cycle as they've done for centuries.

Now, that often means we have to limit human access.

And that is done often by installing what are called bat gates, like the one here behind me.

It allows the bats to come and go freely, but eliminates uncontrolled or unregulated human access, providing the best of all worlds.

This is critically important because bats across North America are in decline.

They are facing serious problems, and most of those problems have their origin with people.

(slow soft music) It's no secret that people can have a very vivid imagination, and this is nowhere better seen than in our folklore and our legends.

And people also seem to love being scared.

If you ever sit around the campfire at night telling ghost stories or stories of Count Dracula, who wants to drink your blood, and the popularity of zombies rising from the dead, well, that's proof of my concept.

But there is one type of animal that most frequently seems to be associated with scary things, and that is bats.

Well the truth is, it's understandable.

Bats only come at night, they seem to disappear during the daylight hours.

They often come from underground where the subterranean spirits live.

And if you ever see their faces up close, well a lot of those are faces only a mother could love.

But the truth is bats are extremely beneficial and really fascinating animals.

Most of them in North America are insect eaters, but in many parts of the world bats are pollinators and are really critical in reseeding and distributing fruit seeds from the fruit that they consume to reforest and reestablish biological diversity.

The bat is a much maligned, but now an increasingly valued family of animals.

There are about 1300 species of bats found all over the world, and they're found in almost every environment except the most arid desert and the most frigid polar region.

But everyone else, bats have adapted.

Now the diversity of bat species is incredible.

The smallest of the bats found anywhere in the world is the tiny little bumblebee bat, found in Thailand and Myanmar.

Its body is just over an inch long.

It weighs less than 1/4 of an ounce, and its entire wingspan is about six inches.

Contrast that with the largest bat in the world, the golden crowned fruit bat.

He can weigh 2 1/2 pounds and have a wingspan that approaches six feet, an enormous fruit eating bat.

The diversity of bat species goes well beyond just the range of size.

There's great diversity in their appearance, their lifestyle, and their natural history.

Their diet is an example of some of this diversity.

Most perhaps eat insects but in other parts of the world, some catch and eat fish, some catch and eat small animals, others consume fruit, some are consumers of nectar, and three species actually drink blood.

But that's three species out of 1300.

In the continental United States, we have about 50 species of bats.

Now, some of them are solitary bats that dwell in trees, like the red bat, which is found in all states east of the Rocky Mountains.

They are found hiding in the foliage where their brown color looks simply like a dead leaf.

They come out at night, forage for insects, hide in the foliage during the day.

But many of our bat species are colonial bats, and for them caves are critical, and many of them will adapt to human structures, but majority of them will live in caves, old mine shafts, or natural underground grottoes.

Now, tourism has actually evolved around bat species.

Hard to believe, but if you visit the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, every evening, people gather in the large natural amphitheater right around the entrance to the cave, where between 200,000 and 500,000 free-tailed bats will emerge in a flood of life every evening to take off into the night sky to consume flying insects.

In Austin, Texas, they go one better.

There, the free-tailed bat has adapted to a human structure, what is called the Congress Avenue Bridge that crosses the Lady Bird Lake.

And each and every night, 1.5 million free-tailed bats come out from under that bridge, disperse across the city, and control the flying insects that affect people and the environment.

These bats are so popular, every evening the entire length of the bridge can be lined with tourists and visitors, both local and from across the country, coming to see this natural marvel.

Bats are incredible.

>>So common doesn't mean boring, by any stretch of the imagination.

You don't get to be common unless you're really good at what you do.

And so our most common bat, the big brown bat, is really good at eating mostly crop pests.

People tend to think bats eat mosquitoes, but that's like eating a potato chip when you could have a brownie or a cheeseburger or something more nutritionally valuable.

So, a big brown bat is referred to as the farmer's friend.

They eat stink bugs, leaf hoppers, those big giant May beetles that are actually bigger than their heads.

They can somehow catch them and crunch them up and eat them.

So, they're basically out there protecting our food crops and our forests, and probably roses or whatever you're into for your garden.

So with all that ability to echolocate to find an insect in the middle of the night, to navigate in total darkness, and to know where you're going, they have this incredible mapping ability, and I think that's fascinating, and because the echolocation drives, like the auditory ability, they have really great communication.

They talk to each other, and I just learned, I want to say it was last year at one of the Bat Working Group meetings, that a lot of these males are out there singing social songs in the ultrasound at night.

And they mate in the fall around here, so they're out there wooing the ladies through song.

And sometimes they like to hang out on a wall in a really exposed place so that they can show off just how tough they are.

So, I think they're singing and they're showing off, and so all these things that people do.

And I think sometimes we forget that everybody's out there looking for enough food, an appropriate mate, and a safe place to live, and a good place to raise the babies.

So bats are doing that, too, they just tend to do it in the middle of the night.

So, along with that singing and communicating and doing those sorts of social things, leads me to question, you know, what are they doing out there amongst themselves.

So, with all our diversity of species, there's several different strategies.

But with our colonial bats, the ones who people get all worried about because they're in the attic or behind the shutters, they live in groups.

They actually have a really neat social structure where it's called the fission fusion model.

And basically, there's a subgroup of animals that know each other.

And they aren't necessarily related, they kind of hang out together 'cause maybe they just like each other.

And so that subgroup will stick together, but periodically, some will leave and go hang out with that colony over there, or maybe go visit the folks.

Who knows?

But there seems to be a lot of information flow and a lot of movement among this larger social group.

And the analogies we have for that sort of behavior would be elephants, and dolphins, and humans.

So it's a really complicated social structure, where there's like this meta-colony, like we have a huge circle of friends, but we don't necessarily hang out with everybody.

And sometimes we'd really prefer to hang out with our friends and maybe not go home for Thanksgiving.

So, it seems to be a similar kind of structure.

And that works if you live in places where your tree might fall down, or your cave might flood, or your barn comes tumbling to the ground.

So it's a it's a really good strategy for large groups of socially intelligent animals.

So the other thing, going back to the language, they've done some studies on what's called the Brazilian free-tail.

It's the bat that lives in the caves in Texas that comes out in those great huge clouds.

And interestingly enough, that species seems to be moving northward.

And we do pick them up periodically in Virginia.

So, they're a very interesting bat to me.

And one thing I learned about them is they seem to exhibit a rudimentary syntax, which they'll have a phrase they use, and they'll be just shift a syllable in that phrase, and the work that was done on that suggested that they're self-identifying.

So like, you'll have a male out there doing his stereotypic phrase with that signature syllable.

And (laughs) I tell people, it's like, "Hey, look at me, look at me, I'm Bob," and some guy over there going, "Hey, look at me, look at me, Joe."

So, but they're able to, you know, have these very individual signature phrases, which I think is super cool for an animal that, you know, we don't hear them do a lot of things, but they do a lot of things, and I just think they're fascinating.

(phone ringing) >>Wildlife Center of Virginia, this is Caroline.

How can I help you?

>>I have a colony of bats up in the roof of my pool house, and there's a little baby that has fallen out.

>>Okay, without touching the animal, can you tell me if the bat has fur?

>>Only a little bit.

It's very small.

>>Do you see any blood or other signs of injury?

>>No, it looks okay, just tiny.

>>You're right to be concerned.

Baby bats should never be on the ground alone, it does need help.

The best thing to do first, since it doesn't appear to be injured, is to try and get that bat back into the colony.

If we aren't able to reunite it, we can certainly consider rescue if needed.

Are you willing to try to return the bat to the colony?

>>Okay, yes.

What should I do?

>>You mentioned the bats are in your pool house.

Do you have a pool skimmer?

>>Yes, I do.

>>Okay, keep in mind that bats can transmit rabies.

It's highly unlikely for a pup, but to keep yourself and the bat safe, don't have any bare skin contact with it.

While wearing gloves, such gardening gloves, use a washcloth to gently scoop the bat onto the pool skimmer.

Allow it to grab on with his toes and then use the length of the skimmer to prop the bat up right next to the colony so that it can crawl back in.

Leave it overnight and if the baby is still in the skimmer in the morning, give us a call back.

>>Okay, I will do that.

I just love these guys.

They're so neat.

I hope the baby will be okay.

>>It's awesome that you have bats.

You must have a great habitat around your home.

>>Thank you so much.

I'll call tomorrow.

>>Good luck.

Let me know if you need any further help.

Bye-bye.

>>Bat pups, as they're called, bat babies are called pups, it's more of a North American usage, they call them other things in Australia and the UK, but bat pups around here, as you've seen, the bats are really tiny, so imagine how tiny the pups are.

So for instance, a tri-color bat pup is under a gram and she has twins.

And so these really tiny species can be almost impossible to feed when they're when they're so, so new.

Once they have fur, you have a better success rate with the little itty bitty ones.

But big brown bats, they're huge.

They're born at two grams.

They're really good at using an artificial nipple or even lapping.

So, big brown bats we have really good success with.

And they are, because they're so colonial, we raise them together and they sort of learn from each other.

So you start them on a milk replacer formula.

And then we mix in ground up meal worms, and they think that's very tasty.

And so we go from there and graduate them on to learning how to eat meal worms.

And so it's a stepwise process.

And it's a little easier with these colonial bats because like I said, they learn from each other.

There's a whole nother group of bats called solitary bats.

And they are raised in little sibling groups with their mother.

So, while the adults are solitary, the little sibling groups are not, and they kind of hang together like a cluster of grapes.

And they tend to be a little more difficult to teach to eat on their own.

But they are really good when they start flying and figuring out catching bugs.

So they teach themselves the bug catching thing a lot faster than the colonial bats do.

So it's sort of interesting, those two different strategies for getting through life kind of lead to different strengths in learning.

However, you can take those solitary bat siblings, and even if they're not siblings, if you put them together, they will act like siblings, So they just kind of come together and they'll hang out together, and it's really pretty cool to watch.

So, you know, bats are mammals, and all mammals love their babies.

And I know that the anthropomorphizing but we know that animals have emotion.

We can't really say what they are, so all we can do is use the language we have to describe emotion, so we know they're very attached to their babies.

So I had a bat here that came over from the Wildlife Center of Virginia.

And Dr. Peach was the admitting vet and I got her here and she developed some issues with her thumbs.

And bat wings are basically hands, and their thumbs are really crucial for them to be able to climb, because when they have their fingers all folded up, they're not always flying, and if you need to go somewhere, they go like this.

So thumbs are really critical to their ability to get along in the wild.

And she was developing these skin issues where it looked like she might actually lose her thumbs.

The skin was hardening, the nail bed was getting damaged.

So we put her on medication and it worked.

It was great, her thumbs healed up, and she looked fabulous, except she was quite pregnant.

(laughs) We try not to have animals give birth in captivity because it sets back release schedules and all that sort of stuff, but you know, you can't change nature.

So, I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the baby to come and the baby didn't come.

And then one day she was on the ground and I checked her and she was in the process of giving birth.

And I left her alone because who wants to be bothered?

So, I came back and the baby hadn't moved, it was partially out and it was just stuck.

And I waited, it was probably close to 10 o'clock at night.

And so I was furiously texting Dr. Peach, asking her what am I supposed to do.

And she's giving me advice, and midwifing something that's only 18 grams, and who is not happy with you, is difficult at best.

So with a combination of you know, Q-tips and surgical lube, and we're just trying to help this baby come out is really tough.

And, eventually, Dr. Peach said, "You're just going to have to pull that baby out," which was horrifying.

So, I did.

I got some padded forceps and I thought for sure this baby was dead because it had been so long.

And everything I could see, it didn't even look like a baby.

I wasn't even sure what it really was.

So I use the forceps and pulled back, and out popped this head, and it wasn't breathing.

And I thought well, you know, that's too bad.

And as the baby, I just kept pulling it out, as the baby came out, the bat jumped, well, not jumped, but she glommed onto him and she just started licking and licking and licking and licking.

And then he went (gasps) and he started breathing.

And she just kept licking him and licking him and then he started vocalizing.

And then she just kept doing her mom thing, it was amazing, and that would not have happened had it not been for Dr. Peach being willing to take my texts at 10 o'clock at night, (laughs) and talk me through that.

So it was truly amazing.

(slow soft music) >>Bats are admitted to the Wildlife Center for a variety of reasons, such as being caught by a cat, being caught in the grill of people's vehicles.

Sometimes people just find that in their attic or whenever they're replacing shutters.

Oftentimes those bats are okay, but people will bring them in just to see if they have any injuries.

Of course, the bats that are caught by cats, or stuck in the grill of the car are often injured.

And other times we just don't know why they come in.

Some of the common injuries that we see here are wing fractures or tears in the skin or the membrane of the wings.

The wing fractures, depending on where those fractures are located and the extent of the fracture, may or may not be able to be repaired.

If they just have lacerations or punctures in the membrane of those wings, the skin membrane itself is a highly vascularized structure with a lot of nervous tissue as well, and can actually heal pretty well.

Examining a bat can be very challenging.

They're very small, they're often very feisty, and they can become highly stressed out whenever we're examining them.

Oftentimes, we'll try to do a very brief exam to make sure that we identify any obvious fractures or injuries, and then we try to get those animals under anesthesia to complete the rest of the exam in order to minimize the stress.

We often anesthetize them just with gas anesthesia, and then keep them under anesthesia for the remainder of the exam.

Oftentimes, while they're under anesthesia, we'll go ahead and do X-rays on them and see if we have any obvious fractures or any obvious internal trauma.

But bats being so very small, sometimes it's hard to see the detail on those X-rays if, unless there's something really obvious.

>>While the news is full of stories about emerging diseases affecting both humans and animals, when we think about bats, one of the diseases that instantly comes to mind is rabies.

And indeed, there is a strain of rabies that is unique to bats, and that strain is zoonotic, it can infect humans.

And if humans are infected and don't get treated right away, it is a deadly disease.

>>So rabies is a virus that affects the nervous system of animals.

Any mammal can carry rabies, however, bats are one of the mammals that people moreso think about with rabies virus.

However, only less than half of 1% of the wild population of bats actually has rabies, and it's transmitted through the bite of that animal.

Most of the time, you will know if you've been bitten by a bat.

Their teeth are very sharp and bats that are biting out of defense really mean it.

The cases where sometimes people are bitten and they don't realize it are if that person was asleep and a bat is found in their room, in those cases we do recommend trying to capture and submit that that to the Health Department for testing of rabies.

And it's also very important for the public not to handle bats without gloves on because their teeth are very sharp.

>>The truth is that bats are also on the receiving end, and sometimes what they are receiving is disease threats that are transported and transmitted by humans.

>>White-nose syndrome is caused by a fungus called Pseudogymnoascus destructans, or PD for short, and this fungus first showed up in bats in North America in upstate New York in 2007.

However, it's thought that it was here at least a year, maybe moreso, before it was actually confirmed.

The fungus itself, we're not sure how it got into the United States or where it came from, but it is suspected to be related to the strain that affects European bats.

The fungus itself, since 2006, has spread to over 36 of the states in the United States and seven Canadian provinces.

However, by the time this airs, it may be even more common than than it is now.

It is estimated that over six million bats have died because of white-nose syndrome.

The actual fungus itself really loves cold, moist environments, such as caves, and the fungus can grow in the cave and actually on hibernating bats.

And so what happens whenever a bat is affected by white-nose syndrome, those that are woken up from their torpor, and they come out of the cave to feed during the middle of winter.

However, there aren't any food resources available, their water resources are limited.

So those bats end up spending more energy and end up starving and becoming very dehydrated.

The fungus can be found on the nose and the wings of the bat, which is where the white-nose syndrome gets its name.

>>Like never before, bats need our help, and we all need to participate in the conservation of these incredible species.

And there are things that you can do.

On the simple end of things, consider putting up a bat box at your home, place of business, or your farm.

You can buy them online from organizations like Bat Conservation International, or if you're a do-it-yourselfer, you can get the plans at your local library or online and build your own bat boxes.

They're simple to build, easy to install, and they really do provide valuable habitat for a variety of bat species.

And bringing those bags to your home helps you as well because they consume a lot of flying insects, including the mosquitoes.

Now you can also become a bat advocate by getting involved in public policy decisions that affect bats, the protection of caves or management of underground resources where bats have found habitat.

Critically important.

Join or participate in conservation organizations that are concerned with bat conservation, such as Bat Conservation International or the organizations like the National Speleological Society that are conserving caves and grottoes.

And if you really want to get to know your local bats, invest in a little technology.

There are special microphones available called the bat detectors that will attach to your smartphone or to a tablet computer that will record and listen to the sounds the bat makes that are outside the human hearing range.

They will convert those and translate those into auditory signals and graphic signals of the sound imprint, and you will be fascinated.

With a free downloadable app you can even find out what species is making each individual sound.

But the bottom line is: get involved.

The bats in your neighborhood are good neighbors and you'll be glad you help them stay around.

(dramatic upbeat music)