Bats Living In A Tampa Elementary School Stick Around As Classes Start
On the first day of school today, students and workers at an elementary school in Tampa may get to meet some animals up close. Fox 13 says that bats have moved into Northwest Elementary School in Tampa, and they will still be there when school starts Today (August 10). Is this real life? Are bats living in a Tampa elementary school? Yep!
Here’s the batty scenario…
The director of the school (Northwest Elementary School) sent an email to parents on Monday, August 7, telling them that bats have been living in the second-floor ceilings for two weeks. Because of this, school officials will have to “temporarily move some classrooms and close some hallways” until the problem is fixed. Officials also said that sending their kids to school is safe.
“It’s okay because the kids go to school during the day,” Dustin Hooper, the owner of All Creatures Wildlife Control, told reporters. “The bats won’t come out in the daytime. The bats are still in their roost when the kids are at school, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”
But you can’t touch them…yet!
Hillsborough County Schools wanted to get rid of the bats before the start of the new school year, but they couldn’t because of wildlife rules. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission said that it is against the law to keep bats from getting to their roosts from April 15 to August 15. This is the time when they have their young.
“They are protected because a bat only has one baby, and the babies need their mothers,” Hooper said. “I do get calls in the middle of the breeding season every year. Hey, we have bats! And I tell them, “There’s nothing you can do until FWC comes out and says it’s a health issue.”
When can they remove the bats?
Now, the school board can’t do anything about the bats until after August 15. After the mating season is over, they plan to block bats from getting into the school and clean the classes.
Hey, on the bright side… who needs a field trip to the zoo when bats are living in a Tampa elementary school? The school IS the field trip!
