More calls to Acres to remove bats due to Covid-19 fear
Bats around the world are getting lots of bad publicity, no thanks to the coronavirus.
Scientists think Covid-19 - which first emerged in Wuhan - originated in bats and could have been transmitted to people through another mammal.
The news has led to a negative perception of the mammal, including here in Singapore, where the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) said it has received three times more calls asking it to remove bats. One resident even threw a live specimen down the rubbish chute.
CRUCIAL ROLE
But now that more is known about the virus, including how it is unlikely you can catch Covid from a bat and how these flying mammals have a crucial role in our ecosystem, such as controlling insect populations, the calls to Acres have decreased in number.
Ms Anbarasi Boopal, Acres' deputy chief executive, told TNP that fear of the virus led to a spike in calls about bats.
She said: "In early February to March, we had a three-fold increase in the number of calls asking us to remove bats, mainly due to Covid concerns."
In February, Acres received a call where someone threw a live bat down the rubbish chute in a Housing Board block, after finding it on the floor in a corridor.
Since then, the number of calls asking to remove bats have dropped from 20 in February to just four in May.
Among the recent calls received was one from a Singaporean who wanted to be known only as Mr Abu, 25.
On May 25, he stumbled upon a bat hanging on a string at his balcony in the morning. Although shocked at first, he left it alone until around 5pm when the bat was making noises.
Half an hour later, he checked on it again to find that it had fallen to the ground and was struggling to fly. He coaxed the bat into a box before contacting Acres.
Mr Abu told TNP: "I was not too concerned about it spreading any disease to me. I was more afraid of injuring it. Nonetheless, I used a plastic bag to cover my hands (while handling the bat) to ensure there was no skin contact."
Acres advised him on how to relocate the bat, and he released it on a tree at a nearby park.
Professor Wang Linfa, director of the emerging infectious diseases programme at Duke-NUS Medical School, said Singaporeans should not worry about contracting Covid-19 from bats as there has been no evidence that Singapore bats carry the disease.
He told TNP: "Even if they are bitten by a bat, Singaporeans are unlikely to contract Covid-19."
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