Holy icy chill, Batman! Freezing bats saved in Texas

It was a rescue worthy of Batman.

A wave of frigid air triggered “hypothermic shock” in a colony of bats clinging to their roost beneath a bridge in Houston, a sprawling metropolis in Texas.

Nearly frozen, the bats started shedding their grip and falling to the pavement from 9 meters (30 toes) up, the Houston Humane Society reported on its Facebook web page.

The Mexican free-tailed bats “are tiny, and have minimal body fat, so they are not able to live long when laying exposed on the ground in freezing temperatures,” the Humane Society defined.

As the chilly wave intensified final Thursday, the group launched a bat rescue, gathering up 929 bats from the bottom underneath the Waugh Bridge, and offering them warmth and vitamin.

Volunteers joined in the trouble and greater than 1,500 bats have been taken in by the weekend, saved heat on the shelter or in the attic of society wildlife director Mary Warwick.

Most solely wanted heat and water, however essentially the most affected have been positioned in incubators and fed intravenously.

“Amazingly, most of (the) bats have survived,” the society stated.

With temperatures climbing to 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 levels Celsius) on Wednesday, the society launched “close to 700” of the bats again to the bridge, leaving them free to swoop by means of the skies for bugs.

Bat watching is a well-liked pastime in Texas, and various bridges have large colonies.

The Waugh Bridge in Houston, Congress Bridge in Austin and Camden Street Bridge in San Antonio all draw guests at nightfall, when the bats go away en masse for nightly feeding forays.

© 2022 AFP