If you happen to see a bat flying around your home, your first inclination is most likely to let it out, at least try to force it out. Letting a bat out of your home is potentially a fatal decision. Let's explore why trying to release the bat back into the wild is a bad idea.

How do bats get inside your home?

When the weather gets warmer, bats seeking cooler place to roost and can go unnoticed until they wind up in your living room. The big brown bat, the most common in Massachusetts, and other bats can enter your home through tiny spaces. All it takes is a quarter inch gap in walls, chimney tops, and attic spaces for one to get in.

If you want to avoid bats entering your home, it's best to check all potential entry sites.

Are bats dangerous, and why shouldn't you release them back into the wild?

Bats are usually harmless. They often avoid human contact unless they feel threatened. With that said, if you see a bat flying around your home, call Animal Control. Many would feel the impulse right away to get that thing out of your house immediately, but you just don't know how long the bat has been in your home or if you have been bitten.

Bat bites are very hard to see!

Bats have very small, sharp teeth, and their bites may leave minimal marks, often no larger than a pinprick, or cause only slight redness or irritation that can go unnoticed. In some cases, the bite may not break the skin enough to bleed or leave a clear wound.

Bats and rabies

While most bats do not have rabies, many do carry the virus. The rabies virus is 100% fatal, if you get bitten by an animal with rabies and don't seek attention at a medical facility with antidote shots, you will become symptomatic and then by the time it affects your brain, death is imminent.

Call your local animal control officer to trap the bat and test it for rabies, do not attempt to release the bat back into the wild. -mass.gov