WAKE COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) — A Wake County maintenance crew made an unusual discovery after lifting a manhole cover: a large colony of bats living inside an underground stormwater system.

Wildlife officials say the colony is one of the largest known roosts of this bat species in the area, and a sign of how natural bat habitats are shrinking across North Carolina.

Olivia Munzer, a bat biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, has been studying bats for nearly 20 years. She says it’s not surprising that bats are turning up in new places in recent years.

“We think that it’s because their habitat is being destroyed, and so they’re looking for new areas to roost,” Munzer told ABC11. This comes amid booming growth and development in the last several years across Wake County.

A maintenance worker in Morrisville found bats roosting in an underground sand filter, and then a different crew in Wake County discovered a separate bat colony in an underground stormwater system. They called the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, and Munzer and her team came out to check it out.

“We went underneath into the actual storm pipes and found all these bats,” she said. “We were floored that there were that many bats in there.”

All they’re doing is going in and out and foraging for insects. So, they’re actually very beneficial to have because they can help control those insects.

– Olivia Munzer, bat biologist

After more research, they found that about 1,000 southeastern myotis bats are in that particular colony in the warmer months of the year, and closer to 125 in the winter months. It’s one of the largest roosts of this species of bat in the area.

Officials are not releasing the exact location of the colony in Wake County for the safety of the bats. Wildlife staff are trying to disturb the colony as little as possible, mainly monitoring them using cameras and acoustic detectors — equipment that can identify species simply by analyzing their calls.

Munzer emphasized that the bats do not pose a risk to people or to themselves by being in the stormwater system.

“All they’re doing is going in and out and foraging for insects,” she said. “So, they’re actually very beneficial to have because they can help control those insects.”

There are 17 different types of bats in North Carolina, and Munzer said they’re often misunderstood.

“They’re an amazing, amazing group of mammals,” she said. “People have this idea of just how scary bats are and just how ugly they are, but when you actually like, get them in your hand, and you work with them, they’re just amazing little animals.”

Bats don’t pose the rabies risk many people think, Munzer said. Only about 1% of bats in the wild carry the disease. For those worried about bat attacks, Munzer made clear that bats are far more scared of humans than humans are of them.

They can live quite a long time. The average bat lives 15-20 years, but some can live up to 42 years old. She said they’re also beneficial to the ecosystem.

“They save millions or billions of dollars for farmers because of all the agricultural pests that they eat,” she said.

Bats have been facing a number of threats in recent years. The biggest is the destruction of their habitat, but they are also being affected by a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome.

“This fungus that eventually grows onto the bat’s skin, onto its wings, as well as its muzzle, and it basically just starts kind of destroying their tissue,” Munzer said. “When they’re in hibernation, their immune response and their metabolism is suppressed. So when this fungus wakes them up, their immune response is low, and it’s dead of winter, so they have nothing to eat or drink.”

White-nose syndrome was first discovered in the U.S. back in 2006, and was later discovered in the North Carolina mountains for the first time in 2011. It’s been attributed to the deaths of at least 6 million bats, although Munzer said she’s under the impression it’s so common that researchers have stopped counting the number of bats that have died from this fungal disease, making the actual total likely much higher.

Munzer said the occasional warm spells in the Piedmont allow bats with white-nose syndrome to be able to find things to eat or drink if they’re woken up while hibernating, which is how they’re surviving in our region.

“Our populations are stable in the Piedmont, and actually in time, they’re starting to increase, so it’s like a little glimmer of hope,” Munzer said.

Three of the 17 bat species in our state are federally endangered, and one is federally threatened, so the NCWRC has a list of ways to help preserve bat populations. It recommends installing a bat house on your property, planting native plants that support night-flying insects that bats eat, and reducing the use of herbicides and insecticides whenever possible. It’s also looking for people to volunteer through the North American Bat Monitoring Program as citizen bat surveyors.

To learn more about bats in North Carolina and how to help preserve their populations, click here.

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