I just found out about this today. One of the bridges I’ve been working on for years that finally got underway on construction is now being put on hold because they have found hundreds of bats on the existing bridge raising their young. Somehow the story was put out on the wire by AP and immediately picked up by all kinds of newspapers and websites across the country. It looks like once the babies grow up the bats will move on. Then we will have to tear down the old bridge because the new one goes in the same place. For now the traffic has been diverted to a temporary bridge across the creek. I’m not mentioned or quoted in the article (in the extended entry).
Though the text of the articles is the same as the AP release, the headlines varied:
Bridge man, don’t touch those bats (Kansas City Star)
Bat Season Delays Ga. Bridge Demolition (Yahoo and most others)
Bat babies delay bridge demolition (CNN)
Bat maternity season delays bridge demolition in Georgia (WCCO – Minneapolis)
Make way for baby bats (MSNBC)
Bats at Work: Georgia DOT yields to helpful critters (Winston-Salem Journal)
Baby bat season delays bridge work (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Quand les chauves-souris stoppent les démolisseurs (Sympatico – Quebec)
Most of the stories didn’t have pictures, but
MSNBC and CNN did.
Continue reading “Bridge Bats”