Published: December 01, 2007 11:49 pm      

City, TPW officials to discuss bat problems

PALESTINE — City officials and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department representatives will be on hand Monday at city hall to discuss the city’s ongoing bat problem with downtown property owners.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. and is presented by the City of Palestine, the Main Street Advisory Board and Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Bat experts have estimated that as many as 700,000 bats live among the downtown buildings, sleeping in walls and attics during the day and emerging through cracks and holes at dusk to search for insects, leaving behind an odor of urine and droppings, or guano, in the downtown area.

City officials held a public meeting in August with representatives from San Antonio-based Bat Solutions, a company which specializes in the removal, or exclusion, of bat colonies from buildings.

Monday’s meeting is to include discussion of the city’s bat colony as well as Texas’ bat laws, the city’s health and safety codes, available methods and alternatives for bat exclusion and guano removal, construction of bat habitats and the ongoing need for bat exclusion once bats are sealed out of downtown buildings.

During the August meeting, bat experts said that bats typically fly south during the winter months, providing building owners with an opportunity to seal entry points to exclude the bats from their downtown locations.

For more information, call the Main Street office at 903-731-8442.