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BBC<\/p>\nMegan McCubbin & Charlotte AndrewsSouth of England<\/p>\n
BBC<\/p>\n
Carolyn Hargreaves is currently caring for 16 injured bats at her home in Hambledon<\/p>\n
A former A&E doctor who has transformed her home into a bat hospital has said she wants to help change public perception of the mammals.<\/p>\n
Carolyn Hargreaves, who lives near Hambledon, Hampshire, now works to rehabilitate bats that can be returned to the wild and care for those that cannot.<\/p>\n
The UK is home to 18 bat species, 17 of which can be found in the south of England.<\/p>\n
Describing the winged animals as “charismatic”, Ms Hargreaves said she wished others could see bats the way she does.<\/p>\n
Following years working in a hospital, Ms Hargreaves has since turned her attention to bats, animals she believes are “bursting with personality”.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
This long-eared bat, known for its strikingly large ears, is being rehabilitated at the bat hospital<\/p>\n
After joining the Hampshire Bat Group, she began caring for poorly bats, often arriving at her door with wing damage after having been attacked by domestic cats.<\/p>\n
“The aim of the game is to get absolutely as many of them back out into the wild,” she said. <\/p>\n
“But some can’t, and some are amenable to being kept.”<\/p>\n
One of her longest residents is Sweetie, a noctule bat found on a pavement in Portsmouth seven years ago with a fractured pelvis, likely after being trodden on.<\/p>\n
She now lives permanently at the hospital and has become an ambassador for her species, visiting schools and community groups.<\/p>\n
Sweetie’s favourite place to be is tucked away inside Ms Hargreaves coat.<\/p>\n
![\"Carolyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/7a323bb0-bbe6-11f0-8252-53776b9338e4.jpg.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
Sweetie, a noctule bat, is one of the mammals to have been rescued by Ms Hargreaves<\/p>\n
Many bats face threats from habitat loss and modern building developments, which see roosting sites in old ancient trees or roofs disappear. <\/p>\n
Ms Hargreaves works alongside physicist Ian Baker at the Hampshire Bat Group, who uses thermal imaging cameras to study bat behaviour and monitor the species.<\/p>\n
“It’s incredible to get insights of Daubenton’s bats skimming across the water,” he said. <\/p>\n
“We’re still learning about them because this time of year they seem to do a lot of courting and very strange gymnastics over the water.”<\/p>\n
![\"Ian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/fcc7a560-bbe6-11f0-8252-53776b9338e4.jpg.webp.webp\")
Ian Baker<\/p>\n
Thermal imaging can pick up bats in the dark, indicated here by small white spots<\/p>\n
The group has recorded around 10 species locally and reports that numbers are relatively stable.<\/p>\n
However, four of the UK’s 11 red-listed mammals are bats, including critically endangered species such as the greater mouse-eared bat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Megan McCubbin & Charlotte AndrewsSouth of England BBC Carolyn Hargreaves is currently caring for 16 injured bats at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-252856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}