How to Thaw Out 1600 Frozen Bats

When a cold snap brought freezing temperatures into Texas last week, Mary Warwick, the Houston Humane Society’s director of wildlife, drove over to the Waugh Drive Bridge to check on the resident bat colony. She found 138 cold-stunned bats under the bridge, victims of hypothermic shock.

Warwick gathered up the frozen bodies and took them home, a 40-minute drive that gave the little mammals time to revive, chirping and moving about a box placed on the heated passenger seat. In the coming hours and days, more bats would be rescued from Waugh Drive Bridge and from another, separate colony under a bridge in nearby Portland. Hundreds and hundreds of bats …

Some 1600 bats were rescued and treated – by warming them in incubators and hydrating them with fluids administered under the skin. Volunteers helped gather and deliver the frozen bodies and, because there was nowhere else to rehab, Warwick welcomed all 1600 into her attic, where the colonies were kept separated in pet carriers.

Within a week the bats, no worse for wear, were returned to the “wild” of their respective colonies. The episode gave the humane society an opportunity to help educate the public on bat ecology and rescue, and it inspired a donation drive: they are now raising funds for facility upgrades that will include a bat room for future freeze outs. 

Visit and donate at houstonhumane.org.

Photo credit: Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle via AP