A Sanctuary for NJ Bats

By MacKenzie Hall, Private Lands Biologist

Jackie Kashmer is a bat-saving machine.  Surely, no mere mortal is fit for the long, painstaking hours she spends to make the tiny animals well again.  But then, no machine could do it with the grace or heart.  Let me introduce you to the New Jersey Bat Sanctuary.

For six years, Jackie has focused her wildlife rehabilitation practice on bats alone – a decision that’s given her a special understanding of what makes bats tick.  And since all of her patients have similar basic needs, she can provide for them in a consistent and well-oiled way.

Inside the Bat Sanctuary are dark, warm rooms lined with nylon enclosures.  The enclosures have a maternal touch, with patterned cloth drapes, cushiony hand-sewn pouches, and little hollowed logs – all for the bats to nuzzle in and feel safe.  If you stand there with the lights on, the cages look still and empty, their furry occupants tucked away in the unlit spaces.  You hear an occasional chirpy “pz-pz-pzzz.”

But it’s not all darkness and calm.  White-nose Syndrome has changed the pace at the New Jersey Bat Sanctuary.  Last winter, Morris County’s Hibernia Mine was down to fewer than 800 little brown bats (from roughly 27,000 three years ago).  By late February, some bats were moving to the precarious “freeze zone” near the mouth of the cave – a sign that the White-nose fungus was taking hold.  Not wanting to see any more bats die, Mick Valent (NJ Fish and Wildlife) called Jackie about helping the bats at Hibernia.  Jackie said, “Bring me a hundred.  If I can handle a hundred, then I’ll take more.”  A couple weeks later she was boarding and feeding around 125 bats from Hibernia Mine – everyone from the freeze zone.

And all those bats had to eat.  Rehab bats are usually fed mealworms, but it takes them a while to get used to crawling on the ground for unfamiliar prey.  That means a lot of hand-feeding.  Jackie started the Hibernia crew on a protein-calorie-vitamin slurry.  The bats had to be fed & hydrated one by one with a dropper until their bellies were full.  Some were eager beavers, licking and biting the droppers clean.  Others weren’t so swift, going through all sorts of contortions to avoid, attack, or attach to all the wrong things.  It could take five minutes to get a particularly goofy little bat fed.  Bats were rotated through holding cages to keep track of who had eaten and who had not.  Times 125 bats, twice a day.

Jackie was clocking 16 hours of bat care per day – sometimes finishing the breakfast round just in time to start all over again.  Most of the bats eventually learned to munch on mealworms and Jackie could get to bed before 2 a.m.  And by April, nearly every single bat had survived to be released back outside the cave.

There’s no rest for the weary, though; with spring came a new group of patients…injured bats, flightless fallen pups, even a mother red bat and her triplets, who had crashed to the ground when their tree roost fell.  More hand-feeding, mealworm rearing, wild bug catching (all I’ll say is a blacklight and freezer were involved!), and cleaning-cleaning-cleaning.

As fall sets in, we’re starting to see Jackie’s bats returning to Hibernia Mine.  Like most bats in Hibernia, they each have a small inscribed band to identify them.  Mick, John Gumbs (BATS Research Center), and I will be tracking the bats through their hibernation, and I know Jackie is wondering what the winter has in store for them…and for her Bat Sanctuary.

Thank you, Jackie, for your machine-like will and your un-machine-like heart!

See video footage of the New Jersey Bat Sanctuary from News 12’s “Garden State Green” segment (Sept 2011) on YouTube.