Bats

We are a leading authority on residential and commercial wildlife control in New Jersey, specializing in bat control and bat removal as well as bird removal, bird control, trapping and relocating of all nuisance wild animals small to large including mice, rats, raccoons, skunks, fox, coyote, deer and more! We offer compassionate and thorough full-service removal and exclusion programs.

BATS ARE MAMMALS, possessing hair, giving birth to live young, and feeding young milk produced by mammary glands. Most produce only one offspring (called a pup) annually and rear their young for the first few weeks of life until they are able to fly and feed on their own. These reproductive and rearing practices make them the slowest reproducing mammals on earth for their size. Despite their slow reproduction, bats exist in large numbers and encompass one quarter of all mammal species, second in population only to rodents. Bats are the only true flying mammals and use echolocation to locate and acquire prey. Bat species found in New Jersey are insectivorous and can consume thousands of insects in a single night.

NEW JERSEY IS HOME TO NINE SPECIES OF BATS. Six species are year round residents and three species are migratory.

YEAR-ROUND RESIDENTS INCLUDE THE:

• Little brown bat
• Big brown bat
• Northern long-eared bat
• Indiana bat (a federal and state endangered species)
• Eastern small-footed bat and
• Eastern pipistrelle

These species are active throughout the late spring, summer, and early fall but go into dormancy, hibernating in caves and abandoned mines, for the cold winter months. THE HOARY BAT, RED BAT, AND SILVER HAIRED BAT ARE PART-TIME RESIDENTS, migrating to southern states in the fall to over winter in the milder climate.

MYTHS AND UNTRUTHS ABOUT BATS ARE NUMEROUS. In fact, bats are actually quite harmless and are important indicators of a healthy environment. Since they are particularly vulnerable to pollution and pesticides, their presence or absence can tell scientists a lot about the overall health of the local environment. Bats seldom spread disease. Like most mammals, bats can contract and transmit rabies, although less than one-half of 1% of wild bats have rabies. In the past 50 years, only 48 U.S. residents are believed to have contracted rabies from bats. The fear of being infected with the disease by bats far exceeds the risks.

It is illegal for anyone, including animal control officers and exterminators, to kill Bats.
All evictions or exclusions should take place prior to May or after August 30th.

White-nose syndrome is taking its toll on Bat populations. The fungus, called white-nose syndrome for the whitish powder that appears on the nose, ears and wing membrane of infected Bats, was first discovered on Bats in New York in 2006. It has since been linked to the deaths of more than a million Bats in 11 states, from New Hampshire to Virginia, and has also spread to Ontario, Canada. The virus appears to be following the path of the Appalachian Mountains.