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"NO GUANO" T-Shirts
Become a Bat Conservation Specialist by proudly
wearing one of our "No Guano" T-shirts featuring our Patented
logo and art on the front and back. Turquise cotton
blend.
Medium, Large or Extra Large
Call (512) 444-5955 to place an
order |
 Handmade Cedar
Bat
Houses
Made
of the finest grade, tongue-and groove Western Red Cedar,
these durable and elegant bat houses can accomadate a colony
of up to 200 bats. Tiny grooves cut horizontally every
1/2" on center offer natural grips. Inside chamber
sections are removable and replaceable. Beautiful copper
roofs shed water, while adding aestetic beauty. Custom
sizes are also available. A wonderful, educational
Christamas or homewarming gift.
Call (512) 444-5955 to place
an order |
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| Bat Exclusion:
Why You Need A Professional
Over 100-million Mexican Free-tailed bats eat
an estimated 1,000 tons of insects every night in
Central Texas, helping to make life in the humid,
river's edge city of Austin a pleasant experience.
But as helpful as they are, you still don't want them in
your buildings.
During my fifteen years of providing bat
exclusion services, I've seen just about every scenario
that can arise, and in about every type of building you
can imagine.
One common
scenario occurs in commercial and institutional
environments, where we arrive to find a botched previous
attempt at exclusion made by maintenance
personnel. Almost every time, an inexperienced
approach to ridding a commercial building of bats
results in dead bats and more problems. It's a
senseless loss, and always adds to the cost of resolving
the issue. I've seen many cases where hundreds of
bats died inside walls or were forced inside buildings
due to the efforts of untrained maintenance personnel
armed with a can of foamy spray and "how to"
instructions off of the Internet. But the truth is
you have to understand the behavior and habits of the
bats and be willing to do whatever is required to reach
all the entry points, if the exclusion is going to
work. That often takes an experienced crew
hundreds of hours to complete.
One example
is a recent job on the UT campus here in Austin.
We had to devise a customized caulking delivery system
and suspend a crewman 50-feet in the air on a boson's
chair to seal all of the entry points. If we had
not sealed those, the problem would not have been
resolved. In this and many other cases, doing the
job correctly required enough knowledge of construction
techniques and high-rise equipment that we could
improvise an effective solution.
Now that you
know your maintenance crew, though well meaning, isn't
suited for the task, where do you turn when roosting
bats have become a problem? Your best bet is to
consult the BCI website (www.batcon.org) for a list of
recommended specialists in your area. If there are
none, check with local wildlife rescue and animal
control organizations. They may be able to handle
the job, or know someone who can. In lieu of that,
check with your local pest control companies.
However, although a pest control license covers dealing
with bats, the training to obtain my own license barely
touched upon bats and not at all on how to exclude them
properly or humanely. Also most pest control
companies have no expertise on building
restoration and construction, or in the use of
high-rise equipment. If you must go with a pest
control company, question them thoroughly about their
experience and what techniques they use. Although
bat exclusion is a simple strategy, calling in a
specialist, saves you time and money while ensuring the
humane treatment or protection of this valuable
environmental resource.
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