Today’s daily prompt: You’ve been asked to do a five-minute presentation to a group of young schoolchildren on the topic of your choice. Describe your presentation.
I love to educate children about bats. When I was a teenager and in college, I worked in a petting zoo. One of my supervisors there was a licensed bat rehabilitator. She taught me a lot about bats. I had my first live encounter with a bat when I was in veterinary school (you can read about it here) and that’s when my interest in them began.
When my kids were in elementary school, I borrowed my friend’s two little brown bats, and visited several classrooms where I did a little “bat education.” My main goal was to do away with the myths that people always hear about bats. You know the myths: that bats love to get tangled in your hair, that all bats carry rabies, that bats are blind, and that bats are dirty aggressive animals, etc. None of those are true and I love nothing more than to dispel those myths and to present the correct facts: mainly that bats are beneficial animals and are very important to our ecosystem. I also love to see a child’s eyes light up when they get to see a live bat up close and even touch one.
That’s what my presentation would be about. Bats!
Gail ♥
Moonlight Reflections 
Wow! That is cool.
We had a bear man come to our school to teach us bear safety. He did not bring a bear. But we had one wander through our playground during class one day (which prompted his visit). Actually bringing the bats makes it even more interactive (although I am aware bringing in bears is always suboptimal).
I imagine a bear wandering through a playground WOULD prompt a visit from a “bear man” to discuss bear safety! LOL! I had a bear cub as a patient when I was in veterinary school. It was just a few months old and I was in awe at how aggressive the little critter already was! That little bear cub would try to eat us up through the cage! It had been captured in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park where it had been caught in a trap and chewed its foot off. The leg bones were exposed and it had a terrible case of gangrene, osteomyelitis, and also a bad case of maggot infestation (you’re in the medical field, so you can imagine what that leg smelled like). I remember the ranger who rescued it said that while he was climbing the tree to capture it, the cub was coming down the tree growling and ready to eat him up!
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We have tiny pipistrelle bats here that swoop around the house at night and hunt the moths attracted by the lamplight.We had a bigger bat that came down the chimney once and we had no idea how to get it out….. is there a failsafe method?
Just open a door or a window and they should echolocate their way out! They are usually just as anxious to get out as you are to get them out!
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