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Local volunteers aid weather-weary bats in recovery

PostPosted: Aug 12, 2006 10:48 am
by Wayne Harrison
By Dylan Darling, Redding Record Searchlight
August 12, 2006

Tiny, furry and fragile, hundreds of baby bats in Sacramento couldn't take the heat wave last month.

Wilted by a string of 11 days with temperatures over 100 degrees, the young Mexican free-tailed bats fell from their roosts and the protective care of their mothers.

"The intense heat just got so hot that they dropped down," said Karlene Stoker, who is among a handful of volunteers in and around Redding who are helping revive the bats.

The heat was probably amplified by the concrete surroundings of the bats' urban homes, she said. More than 800 of the tiny baby bats, known as pups, were found out of their roosts around Sacramento. While the California Native Bat Conservancy (CNBC) successfully returned 400 pups to their colonies, the other 400 were too weak to hang from their roosts under bridges, building overhangs and in other dark crannies.

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