The other day, a surveyor was walking along a massive highway construction project in Virginia when they spotted a brown clump of fur on a pile of gravel. They stopped for a moment to examine the little fluffball and were shocked when they realized that
it was a bat — and he was still breathing.
The surveyor promptly reached out to Ronnie Sanford, one of the environmental compliance managers on the construction project. While Sanford wasn’t equipped to save the little bat on his own, he knew just how to protect him until an experienced team of rescuers arrived.
“[Sanford] immediately took steps to protect the little bat by placing caution tape around the area to prevent anyone from disturbing him,” Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge (EWR) wrote on Facebook.
After securing the area, Sanford contacted the folks at EWR, who agreed to help right away. A team of rescuers raced to the scene, and when they arrived, they were saddened to see how weak and vulnerable the little silver-haired bat was.
“His fur was full of sand, and it appeared he had been exposed to salt water,” EWR wrote. “By the time he was found, he was extremely thirsty, weak and exhausted. Based on his condition, we suspect he had been stranded there for quite some time.”
It was a puzzling situation, finding a tiny bat stranded on a giant highway construction project. There was no way to know for sure just how the bat landed there, but the rescue team soon came up with a few possible scenarios for what might have happened.
“It’s possible he became exhausted during flight and landed on the rocks, was knocked around by the waves, or was even dropped by a predator,” EWR wrote. “What we do know is that this poor little guy had clearly been through quite an ordeal.”
You can see more pictures of the bat’s rescue here:
As weak as the little guy was, he’d luckily been found just in time. EWR’s rescue team soon scooped him up, and their bat rehabilitator, April Green, happily took him in for treatment.
It’s been a little over a week since the bat’s rescue, and he’s currently in rehabilitation with Green. The EWR team, including Green, is doing everything they can to help the little guy regain his strength, and they hope to release him back into the wild in the near future.
Until then, Green will continue nursing him back to health. And the folks at EWR cannot be more grateful to the construction crew for doing what they could to make sure the little guy had a second chance at life.
“Every life matters, no matter how small!” EWR wrote.
