THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 1, 1995 TAG: 9508010263
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SNUG HARBOR LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
The ruckus raised when bats moved into a Snug Harbor church attic may have been just what was needed to get rid of the flying mammals.
Snug Harbor Community Church members reported Monday that two colonies of bats roosting this spring above the church sanctuary left as mysteriously as they had appeared.
``They're all gone,'' said Associate Pastor Gerald Bright. ``They left on their own.''
The church discovered about 100 evening and brown bats in the attic this spring after a malodor - created by bat droppings - spread through the church sanctuary and threatened to halt church functions, including weekly services and children's Vacation Bible School.
Bats are considered non-game wildlife in North Carolina and cannot be killed unless they cause substantial property damage.
Members of the small interdenominational church tried to evict the unwanted tenants by shining flood lights at all hours and hanging mothball-mixture balls. Someone also set up an electric fan to continuously blow hot air around the nursing mammals.
When these efforts initially failed, members of a church board decided to publicize their dilemma in the hope of finding someone with a solution.
Bright said he received calls from people as far away as Texas who were willing to come to the Perquimans County community and go to bat, so to speak, for parishioners.
The offers, however, turned out to be unnecessary.
Not long after a story appeared in The Virginian-Pilot and on a Hampton Roads television station, the bats disappeared.
Bright said men at the church pulled away blue siding on the back of the single-story church and, upon removing the insulation, discovered the bats and their young were gone.
``I tell you, they're pretty well protected by law, so there isn't a whole lot you can do,'' he said. ``But they left, and I think we were probably the most fortunate people around.''
Edenton bat expert Paris Trail, who had offered advice to the Snug Harbor congregation, said Monday that the noise, and nature, may have played important roles.
Parishioners trying to find ways to get rid of them ``may have made enough racket and disturbance in there that they left,'' Trail said.
The bats also may have packed their bags when the sun - and not just church leaders - hit the roof.
Bats, particularly the pups, will move into wall spaces or to cooler parts of a building when it gets too hot in the roost.
``It's usually starting about the end of June and into July that I get most of the calls about bats,'' Trail said, noting that most older homes in Albemarle-area small towns have bats that go largely unnoticed.
Pups born in the spring are teenagers by then and are left alone at night while the adults fly off for food. ``They're hungry and they're bored so they get into trouble,'' Trail said.
As their habitat is trimmed, bats have a harder time finding a suitable home. Many of the hollow trees they once used have been destroyed because of development or deforestation.
Bright said the church, which is less than 20 years old, is sealed tight now to keep the bats out when they likely will return to roost.
``I think they'll have a hard time getting back in now,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: FILE PHOTO
The bats liked their Snug Harbor home until church members created
something of a tempest, experts theorize.
KEYWORDS: BATS NORTH CAROLINA by CNB