The reason that I ask this is that I have noticed that there is a entirely different approach in how to deal with bats in house in the US compared with how we deal with it in the Netherlands.
First let me check if I understand this right: In (most?) US-states it is perfectly legal to exclude bats from a building. There a companies that are specialised in bat exclusion and since the success of artificial nursery houses, exclusion is often accompanied by placing a bat house on the same building, a neighboring building or on poles. I even heard that in some states it is not allowed to tolerate bats in your house. That is: a house where people live as well. A barn is different thing.
I guess the facts that some American neighborhood bats may have rabies (classical Lyssa-virus) is a important reason for this policy. Are there other reasons? Do bats in house always cause nuisance (noise, stench, bat droppings, bats flying around in the house?)?
In the Netherlands all bat species are protected by law (European law as well as Dutch law). This means that is not allowed to kill bats, catch and relocate bats or destroy roosts unless you get a special license for it. For relocating bats and destroying roosts you need a permit for every single occasion. Sealing the entrance of a bat roost to prevent bats getting in (or out) is equal to destroying a roost so that is forbidden as well. The actions are also forbidden in periods when the bats are not using the roost at that time (summer roost / winter roost). In fact, when human activities destroy foraging habitats and/or essential flyways in a way that bats from a certain roost can't survive anymore, than those activities are prohibited under the same law. That means whenever a developer or the government wants to destroy one or more buildings or wants cut down trees, for example for building a new road, they have to investigate if the building / tree has a bat roost in it. (And that's where I come in: that kind of bat research is my job.
But when someone discovers bats in their home, it is also not allowed to exclude them. Only when its very clear that the bats cause nuisance like stench or noise, then it is allowed to do something about that. But first it must be certain that no other measures can be taken to stop the nuisance, before you are can get a permit to exclude the bats. There are no or maybe just a few companies that work in that field, most work is done by voluntary bat researchers and conservationists. I do that kind of voluntary work as well. Dealing with complaints about bats is 80% educating people about that bats are not dangerous (they don't attack you or drink blood, they don't destroy the house etcetera). Only when there is a real nuisance we help people to exclude bats. Also when people are so scared of bats or stand ground in their hate against bats that we are afraid that they will kill the bats anyway.
There might be different reasons for this different approach:
- we don't have have classical rabies in our neighbourhood bats. We have European Lyssa virus but in the whole of Europe we have three incidents where someone got rabies from a bat in the last 100 year. We are careful, but there is no great danger.
- almost all of our house are brick or concrete houses and a lot of neighbourhood bats live in wall cavities of roof cavities. Nuisance like stench and noise is very rare.
- we have a cool climate (colder than south-US) and bats stay in torpor most of the day and may cause noise nuisance only in the evening and morning.
Are there in the US (in your area) a lot of examples of bats that are allowed to remain in there roost, whilst roosting in a building where also people live?
I am not saying that our approach is better than yours. I'm a just interested in the different ways we deal with bats in houses.
Erik
(P.S. English is not my own language so forgive me if I make mistakes in writing...)
