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Your chances of seeing a bat on Halloween, unless it’s a store-bought decoration or a candy-collecting kid adorned with black wings, are very low — despite the wide variety of real ones that live in and migrate through Wyoming.

They’re most often spotted in the summer and during migration season in the fall. By tonight — the end of international Bat Week — most of the fury fliers are already hibernating, according to local experts. But the animal’s association with the spookiest night of the year is unavoidable, for good or ill, a Wyoming bat aficionado told WyoFile.

A cliff-dwelling spotted bat, while migrating through Wyoming, decided the Education Building at the University of Wyoming would make a good place to take a break. (Jolene Giese/City of Laramie)

“It makes me laugh,” said Ellen Whittle, who, instead of finding bats spooky, describes them as “adorable,” “chill” and “fascinating.” Then again, those are descriptors you might expect from a wildlife biologist who researches bats.

Whittle serves as bat project manager for the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database at the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center in Laramie. When she’s not searching for bats in the field, she’s always eager to intervene in a batty situation when one needs to be rescued from a potential human interaction on the University of Wyoming campus.

This bat was captured and observed in Wyoming as part of ongoing efforts to combat white-nose syndrome, which plagues bats in eastern Wyoming. (Wyoming Natural Biodiversity Database)

One call she regrets not getting was when a western spotted bat was seen chilling on the outside of the College of Education building. The local animal shelter took the call instead — which is appropriate, Whittle said. But the rare-for-Wyoming bat had already been relocated before she got a chance to observe it.

“I would have dropped everything to go see this bat,” Whittle told WyoFile. “Everyone in the bat profession wants to see a spotted bat. It’s like our white whale. I was so jealous.”

Dustin Bleizeffer covers energy and climate at WyoFile. He has worked as a coal miner, an oilfield mechanic, and for 26 years as a statewide reporter and editor primarily covering the energy industry in...

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  1. Hey Wyoming. I’m in the UK, and found this article through Reddit. So, unashamedly, I am here to ask that all fellow bat enthusiasts join us at r/bats.

    Reply

  2. Bats are great: they are important to the ecology and frankly they’re just so cute. I love them.

    Reply
  3. Reply