Massachusetts Animal Removal Blog|BatGuys Wildlife Removal LLC

One of the most common questions that I’m asked by customers is “have you ever been bitten by an animal?” The answer is no, I haven’t. In all the years I have been removing wildlife from people’s homes I have never been bitten by an animal. I’ve come close to getting gouged by raccoons a few times but I’ve always managed to get out of the way.

Two years ago I arrived at a customer’s house to perform a bat inspection and was met at the door by the customer and also his cocker spaniel. The dog was barking and very excited as most dogs usually are. The customer told me “let him sniff your hand and he’ll calm down” So I extended my hand toward the dog’s nose and she lunged forward and bit my hand and would not let go. I finally managed to get my hand out of the dog’s mouth and saw that I had 3 puncture wounds from the dog’s teeth in my thumb. That was the first time I had ever been bitten on the job. By a dog of all things!

Last week Mike joined the dog bite club. In a very similar situation he had a golden retriever take a chunk out of his hand while inspecting a customer’s house for squirrels. A quick thump with the flashlight made the dog let go of his hand. He also had 3 puncture wounds on his hand. Luckily the dog had just had his shots and the customer had the paperwork to prove it.

I find it amusing that we can remove angry gray squirrels by hand and wrestle raccoons in hand to hand combat in attics but the true danger that we face in this business is from our customer’s dogs. Would would have thought?

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

Summer is always a hectic time for the BatGuys. From June 1st through September 1st I juggle a crazy schedule that includes a couple dozen bat calls every single day from people that want everything done ASAP. Add to that spending time with my wife and 3 year old son and also trying to work out every day and there isn’t much time left for anything else.  As soon as the first cold front hits us in early September the bat calls will decrease by over 50% seemingly overnight. That is where we are at now. Things have slowed down quite a bit and I am finding time to get caught up on a lot of things. I regret not having posted more entries in this blog over the summer. Hopefully this will not be the case in the upcoming months.

This summer was about average for us in terms of calls for bats. We did see a dramatic reduction in little brown bats. In previous years we would normall deal with little brown bats in 15-20 houses each year. This year we have only seen little brown bats in 2 homes. This reduction in little brown bats is due to white nose syndrome which has all but wiped out the population of these bats in New England. Thankfully our resident population of big brown bats seems to be doing fine.

We are getting ready for the fall and i’m looking forward to dealing with squirrels and mice again. I don’t have anything against bats but after dealing with them for the last 4 months I could use a change. Once we get the first cold nights where the temperature dips down into the 30’s the calls for gray squirrels, flying squirrels and mice will start to pour in.

I completed my 2nd Pan Mass Challenge back at the beginning of August. Once again my family and I had a great time at this event and I had a great ride. The PMC is something that I will always be a part of. Once you have done it once it is very hard not to continue doing it. I’ll have a page complete with pictures and a story posted here shortly.

I’ll be updating my blog on a weekly basis so check back soon.

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com