Bats, and Not the Louisville Slugger Variety

When I was working, for much of my career I was in the oldest building on the campus. The building had unofficial residents: bats.

Now it happened that it had two large stairwells: the smelly one, and the unsmelly one. I counseled students on the first day of class to use the one that didn't smell and not the other.

The reason: batshit.

Yes, and these were members of a protected species. Not homo sapiens.

Let me stipulate that I was not gentle when I occasionally had to remove one from a classroom. I channeled Little Bunny Foo Foo, bopped him on the head, and swept him into a trash can, Not messing with rabies or histoplasmosis! Tough love for bats.

Well, we recently heard late night scratching in my house's attic. I thought, oh my god! It's bats. So we called Varmint Busters.

The verdict: The scratching sounds were just from mice. Hooray! Mice are small; they don't leave a mountain of guano, and they are unprotected! And they're easily eraticated.

I think that we should re-think our notions about certain species being protected. After all, bats are not whooping cranes!