47 baby bats removed from their roost and dumped

July 2011. The RSPCA wants to hear from anyone who can help find out who illegally removed the bats from their roost, leaving the babies motherless.

The pipistrelle babies were discovered in the box at Perham Down near Tidworth, Wiltshire, by a member of the public along with two adult females, one with a fractured wing.

Jim Wilkinson of Collingbourne Ducis found the box at the side of a polo pitch while out walking with his son. He said: "They were all together in the corner on top of one another, I guess for warmth, the poor things. I could see they were bats straight away. My little boy was quite worried about them."

Wiltshire Wildlife Hospital
Mr Wilkinson left the box overnight, thinking it possible someone would return to collect the bats, but when it was still there the next day he took the box to a vet. The vet contacted Marilyn Korkis of Wiltshire Wildlife Hospital who initially took the bats in.

Marilyn said: "This was one of the most distressing sights I have ever seen. They were all crawling over each other in the box, with baby bats clinging to other babies. It's just wicked. Usually a mother will have just one baby, so 47 mothers will have flown out of the roost and come back to find all their babies gone."

"The babies all had mites and were very dehydrated so we gave them some rehydration fluid. I got up to feed them in the morning at 4.45am and I didn't finish until 3pm that afternoon. We started ringing round bat workers and have managed to share them out to six different people for hand-rearing because it was just an impossible task trying to take care of that many.

"They were little pipistrelles of varying sizes but none of them were flying - the smallest was no bigger than a thumbnail and the biggest was only about an inch. Hopefully we have given them a chance to go on and be released back out although the task will be a difficult one"

Pipistrelles will often roost inside buildings, as well as in trees or bat boxes. In Britain all bat species and their roosts are legally protected. It is a criminal offence for anyone intentionally to kill, injure or handle a bat, to disturb a roosting bat, or to damage, destroy or obstruct access to any place used by bats for shelter, whether they are present or not. Anyone found guilty of disturbing a roost can be fined up to £5,000 per bat.

RSPCA Inspector Will Hendry said: "I've never heard of any bats being removed and dumped like this. If there were 49 in the box goodness knows how many bats would be in the roost. Bats are a declining species and it is totally illegal to disturb them. If you do find bats in your property, you should contact Natural England who will send out an expert to advise you.

"We would urge anyone who may have seen anything suspicious to call either the RSPCA on 0300 1234 999 or the wildlife officers at Wiltshire Police on 0845 4087000.