Bats in Hibernation

These are just two of the five bats that we have hibernating here at the center. The one on the left is a Silver-haired bat and the pictures on the right are of a Big Brown Bat. Every year our wildlife rehabilitation program gets a couple of bats that have been disturbed during their hibernation. When a bat wakes up from hibernation, it uses all of its stored energy just to get its body going again. During the winter, there are no insects for a bat to eat; therefore, it cannot go back into hibernation because it will not be able to regain the energy from food that is needed to return to a state of hibernation. Therefore, we artificially hibernate them in a refrigerator until it is warm enough for bugs to be outside and the bats can be released. Every three weeks we wake them up to make sure they are doing okay, feed them for three days and then put them back into the refrigerator.