A Toronto volunteer bent down to help a mouse. It was an endangered bat

Karly-Lynne volunteers with FLAP Canada. On spring and fall mornings she walks downtown Toronto looking for migrating birds that have flown into glass, so they can be treated.

The mouse

One morning she was taking a group of injured birds to the office. At the foot of a building she saw what looked like a mouse.

“When I bent down to investigate, its wings quickly shot out,” she told The Dodo. “I knew I had found a bat!”

It was an eastern red bat, one of seven endangered bat species in the area. Bats fly into windows too, so she knew what to do. She put on leather gloves and guided it into a container.

The bat was not grateful. “Despite needing help, the little red bat angrily chittered at me and showed its tiny, sharp teeth,” she said. She took that as a good sign.

Nine days

She took the bat to the Toronto Wildlife Centre, a charity and wildlife hospital. Staff found a minor head injury and nothing else wrong.

They kept her for nine days to make sure she could fly, then let her go.

“She flew beautifully out of her tent,” said Andrea, one of the centre’s rescuers. “I remember her even circling around us once before disappearing between the trees.”