HOUSTON — Tons of of bats lost their grip and fell onto the pavement under a Houston bridge after suffering hypothermic shock during a the recent cooling of the city, according to wildlife rescuers who rescued them by giving them fluids and keeping them warm in incubators.
Mexican free-tailed bats that roost on Houston’s Waugh Bridge suffered a shock when temperatures dropped below freezing last week, the Houston Humane Society said he said in a Facebook video.
The Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Center rescued a whole lot of bats from under the bridge, together with one other group of bats elsewhere in the Houston area that also went into hypothermic shock, center director Mary Warwick said. She said some were recovering in dog kennels in the attic of her house. She said nearly 700 of the roughly 1,500 bats rescued are due to be released back into the wild on Wednesday.
The humane society is now working to raise money for facilities improvements that may include a bat room, Warwick added.
“It will really assist in situations where we proceed to see these strange weather patterns,” she said. “We could really use more room for bat rehabilitation.”