It’s 6 a.m., which is the ungodly hour my family and I wake up to get to school and work and everywhere else we need to be.
I’m about to put on some coffee when the unmistakable silhouette of a bat swoops down from the second floor and into our living room.
Its wingspan is about the size of my forearm. My wife grabs our 4-year-old son and they take shelter in the bedroom.
I’m hunkered down behind a couch trying to remember everything I know about echolocation while this bat flies around the room, swooping down at me every time it passes by.
This is not a spooky Halloween story. This is a story about the real life dangers of having a bat enter your living space.
“Rabies is a very rare disease, but it has very serious consequences in that it’s almost 100% fatal,” said Dr. Will Britton, emergency medical doctor with Munson Medical Center.
According to the CDC, symptoms for rabies start out as typical flu symptoms, but will expand to include delirium, difficulty swallowing, loss of voluntary movement and an overwhelming fear of water.
But here’s the thing: There’s lots to love about bats.
If you like tequila, bats are one of the only animals that can pollinate the agave plant.
They’re also the only mammals who can fly (flying squirrels can glide, but they cannot fly).
And maybe most importantly, a single brown bat, which are common in our area, can catch up to 1,200 insects in just one hour.
“Bats are great neighbors,” said Britton, who spent his childhood at his veterinarian mother's knee, extricating bats from attics. “They’re so important to the environment, especially in northern Michigan. We really want to learn how to live with them ... but we really want to keep them outside. That's where they're safe."
Record numbers of bats are entering homes
The only way to test a bat for rabies is to bring it into your local health department.
The Grand Traverse County Health Department normally sends fewer than 30 bats in for rabies testing each year. This year they’ve already tested 70.
Similar numbers were reported by the Health Department of Northwest Michigan, which serves Antrim, Charlevoix, Emmet, and Otsego counties.
“But you can’t just walk in here with a bat,” said Michael Kolbusz, the environmental health supervisor with the Grand Traverse County Health Department.
You have to make an appointment first.
“And the other thing is that we don’t take bats that are alive. It has to be euthanized before it comes to our office,” he added.
In order to test a bat for rabies, the bat’s head and spinal cord need to be in good condition. Tips for capturing a bat can be found here.
Some local veterinarians offer euthanasia services, but contacting your local health department is the best first step after the bat is captured.
And this is where I went wrong when I had a bat come over for breakfast. I’ll spare you the details, but the bat that came into our house was not euthanized correctly, which meant it couldn’t be tested, which meant my entire family and I had to be vaccinated for rabies.
Luckily for us, the rabies vaccination is 100% effective as long as it’s administered before the symptoms for rabies begin.
So, if you find yourself hunkered down behind your couch at 6am with a bat flying around, remember:
“They’re not trying to attack you,” Dr. Britton said. “They’re trying to lick the salt off your skin. And the teeth of a bat are so tiny, they can bite you and you might not know.”
Nothing to be afraid of this Halloween season.
Just a reason to be vigilant and call your local health department.
