SALT LAKE CITY — Students and staff at Highland High School in Salt Lake City got their school year off to a spooky start as hundreds of bats have been found in and out of campus buildings.
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources crews have been working nonstop, even into the night, to push the bats out.
“It was just not what we were expecting to be happening on the first week of school,” said student Lizzy Gardner.
The senior said she saw the bats looming in the school halls a week before class even started while attending a cheer clinic.
“I’ve never been that close to them in the daylight," she said. "We just tried to stay calm because we don’t want to scare the little baby cheerleaders. So we were just like ‘It’s okay, it’s not a big deal.’”
Seventy bats were found hanging around the third floor of the school with around 150 outside and on the roof.
“As teachers were coming back into the building, one of the teachers reported a rattling in the air conditioning,” said Salt Lake City School District spokesperson Yándary Chatwin. “They looked inside the unit and there was a nest inside that HVAC unit.”
Chatwin says the district has had a couple bats in schools before, but having more than 100 flying around is new.
Wildlife conservation biologist Shawn Pladas explained that being next door to Sugar House park where there are rich resources for bats likely steered them towards the school as they head south.
“So we get bats, we get migratory bats coming into Utah, and this time of the year, July and August, it's not uncommon for us to have bats coming into breezeways of apartment buildings or coming up on our porches or even in schools,” he said.
Chatwin says two staff members who were helping support the bat removal did have direct contact with the flying mammals and received medical treatment. Besides that, Pladas says there is no health risk to students and staff as long as they leave the bats alone.
Crews have removed most of the critters from the main classroom where they were found, and will be working mainly at night and this weekend to push them out of the building.
Gardner hopes the bats find a new home.
"I’m glad that they’re getting them out, and [Highland principal] Mr. Chatterton has been really good about it and telling us that they’re getting them all out and putting them back into the wild."
