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How To Prepare For Bat Removal Season

Group of small dark bats huddled upside down together.
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In recent years, people have begun to pay more attention to the importance of bees to our ecological system and our crops. Bats are equally crucial for pollinating many fruits and vegetables, and they have other agricultural benefits, such as seed dispersal. Bats also eat a staggering number of insects, including mosquitoes, every night. One bat can consume as many as 1,000 bugs in an hour of feeding.

But while you may recognize the benefits of bats to the environment or even be charmed by the cute and furry faces, you don’t want bats in your attic or walls. Find a home elsewhere, thank you very much. As soon as possible, if you, please. Luckily, beginning in May, it will be bat removal season.

If you’re like most folks, you probably have not heard of bat removal season or ever knew there was such a thing. Just as there are regulations and laws for hunting season and other fish and wildlife management, there are laws protecting bats as well. Legally, humans cannot disturb them during the months of the year when mother bats are caring for their young, who cannot yet fly and hunt on their own. And these protections are in place no matter where the bats roost.

May and again from August to mid-October are the only times during the year that it is safe and legal to remove bats from your home. These months are also the legal window in which you can take measures to keep them from entering. If you want to resolve a bat infestation or prevent one from happening, these three and a half months are your shot.

At CP Bat Mitigation, dealing with bats safely and responsibly is our business. We’re gearing up for bat season, and we have some tips to help you get ready, too.

Signs Of Bats In Your Home

If you’ve heard scurrying in your walls or scuffling in your attic space, and you’ve ruled out rodents, you might have a colony of bats who found your home hospitable for the winter. The majority of bats who find their way into residences or businesses are brown bats, large or small.

Brown bat populations have been decimated in recent years by white-nose disease, and their colonies have been disturbed by continued deforestation and disruption of their habitats. Bats don’t want to live in your home. They’re just having trouble finding a natural home of their own.

As spring arrives, it’s common for homeowners to get outside and inspect their homes for damage from winter weather and to assess what maintenance is necessary. During this process, you might notice bat guano or urine in a streak along your siding or soffits. These stains are a good indication of where the bats entered your home for the winter. Show your professional bat removal specialist what you have discovered. They will need to address that area if it is an entry or exit point for the bats.

However, you might have bats in your eaves and not even know it. Bats hibernate in the winter without eating, drinking, or leaving the roost. They survive the cold months by going into a state of stasis and using up fat stores to remain alive. Before you take measures to close up any cracks or areas where critters such as bats could get in your home, you need to make sure you don’t already have any bats inside.

An inspection by CP Bat Mitigation can help you be sure that your home isn’t a haven for hibernating bats before you block their exits from your home. No one wants their home to become a mausoleum for decaying bat corpses. Contact the pros to be sure your home is bat-free.

As you might expect, bat removal specialists are very busy during the short bat season. Contact CP Bat Mitigation right away and get your home on the schedule for an in-season eviction. It is illegal to exterminate bats and cruel to evict them during the maternity and nursery months. Infant bats will die of dehydration if their mothers cannot return to roost.

When Is Bat Removal Season?

We can legally remove bats from your home during May before any pups are born. If you miss this window, you’ll need to let the bats remain in your home through June and July until the pups mature enough to be able to fly and follow their parents out of your house at night to feed.

Trying to exclude bats from your home during the summer leaves the flightless young ones behind, who then dehydrate, die, and decompose in your home. Or they panic and seek to enter your living spaces, putting you and your family in danger. Either way, it’s not a good option. Bat season is your only sane and humane option.

Bat season reopens on August 1 and runs through mid-October. After mid-October, bats enter hibernation, and again it is illegal to disturb them. Bothering a hibernating animal during slumber often causes them to die as it disrupts its body’s natural cycles and depletes them of fat reserves necessary to survive the winter.

Attempting to close off the bats’ exit in winter is not a viable option either. The bats will awaken and be trapped in your attic to die and decompose. They also may try to enter your living area through vents, cracks, chimneys, or any way they can to escape their prison. Don’t make this mistake. Exclude the bats from your home during bat season only, and hire a professional to do it quickly, properly, and humanely.

Get Ready For Bat Removal Season By Calling The Pros

At CP Bat Mitigation, we want to help you ensure that your home is bat-free. We will inspect your home to look for signs of any bat colonies and give you advice about how to seal your home to make it impossible for bats to enter. And should we find evidence of bats in your belfry, we will safely and responsibly exclude them from your home. We know what time bats return to roost, and we will work quickly to ensure that when they go out one night to feed that they can’t get back into your home.

Reach out today to get started on our effective bat control services in Omaha.

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