Species

Bats

Bats flying inside a room

Close the door to the rest of the house. Open the windows and curtains and dim or turn off the room light. Ideally, watch to make sure that the bat has flown out before closing the window.

If the bat lands where you can reach it safely, cover it with a cloth or small box and then follow the instructions for grounded bats.

Grounded bats

If you find a grounded bat without any obvious injury, put on bite-proof gloves, such as gardening gloves, and then pick it up by covering it with a small box such as a margarine tub, and sliding a card under this to trap it – or covering it with a small towel or cloth and using this to pick it up, and put it in to a small box.

Many grounded bats become dehydrated. You can help the bat recover by placing some water-soaked kitchen-roll paper in a shallow dish or jam jar lid on the bottom of the box for it to drink from. You can make the bat more comfortable by fixing a small piece of dry kitchen-roll paper to the inside of the box for it to hang on.

Keep the bat in its box in a cool, quiet place until near dusk and then, wearing your gloves again, release it onto a wall, ledge or tree out of the reach of cats, dogs, children and passers by. If you need to release the bat earlier in the day, please put it in a sheltered place out of the sun.

Injured bats

If the bat is obviously injured and is not flying, put on bite-proof gloves and put it in a small box (as for grounded bats). Then contact a local bat carer (through Bat Conservation Trust 0845 1300 228), a local vet or the Scottish SPCA Animal Helpline (0870 7377 722)

Baby bats

between mid-June and late-July baby bats may fall from roosts or their flying mothers or get lost when learning to fly. If you find a baby bat, follow the guidance on grounded bats and put it in a box and keep until dusk. At dusk, release the bat on to the wall below the roost (if known) or on the side of a building, as high up as you can safely reach.

If you find a recently dead bat please contact the nearest SNH office. We may be able to use the dead bat in the UK rabies surveillance programme. More than 4,000 bats have been tested in the last 16 years. Only two Daubenton’s bats, a species which rarely roost in houses, were found to have the disease.

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