Stewart is a professional bat ecologist surveying for bats (usually for planning applications). Bristol Bat Rescue is Kiri Green, Stewart Rowden, and our son Rowan. We were formerly known as Avon Bat Care. We have no volunteers currently assisting us. To date the only registered Trustees of the Charity have been Kiri Green, Stewart Rowden and Ashley Dale. Ashley left in May 2020. Kiri has two biology Masters and spent a year training to be a doctor for humans before having to stop. She has been round the world taking part in conservation research and caring for wildlife, has been a volunteer keeper with Bristol Zoo, and volunteered in Secret World Wildlife Hospital's hospital rooms. She was Avon Bat Group Chair 2013-2018, ABG's Bat Care Co-ordinator 2012-2018, and was trained to be a Bat Conservation Trust listed bat carer by vet Heidi Hargreaves (ABG's previous bat care co-ordinator). She has a class 2 bat licence (as well as dormouse and great crested newt licences). Stewart Rowden is a History graduate who got into bats in 2009, and became trained by Heidi alongside Kiri to be a BCT bat carer, as well as also volunteering for Secret World Wildlife Hospital. Stewart worked for Countryside Council for Wales and Natural Resources Wales as a planning advisor, and then for Natural England as a licencing officer. Stewart is class 2 licenced for bats (and has a dormouse licence) and is registered under Kiri's education bat licence. Stewart was Avon Bat Group's bat walk and talk person from 2013-2018. After 10 years of rescuing and caring for bats we have been trying to take 2021 off from doing rescues- running a bat rescue from our own home 24 hours a day has been rewarding but hard work and very intrusive- we felt we needed some time for ourselves and our family. However, we have still done a few rescues and reared some bat pups, as well as dealing with lots of phone calls for advice. If you find a bat in trouble please go to https://www.bats.org.uk/advice where you will find useful information about what to do and the Bat Conservation Trust's helpline details. They will try to find you someone in your area. For our area, please try Bat Conservation Trust, ARC in Bristol, or SecretWorld in Somerset, Wiltshire Bat Care. and if up in Gloucestershire Evesham Bat Care. Vets are normally willing to take in wildlife if they need help, and they can pass the animal to wildlife carers, but there is no legal obligation for them to take in wildlife. Most vets don't have any experience with bats. And because of the risk of rabies some vets can not take bats for insurance reasons. So please respect their decision if they say no and try elsewhere. If a vet says they can not take a badly injured bat for euthanasia because it is illegal to kill a bat this is not the case when it is for the welfare of the animal. If a vet says they need to charge you for treatment please ask them to phone the RSPCA- they can get a log number and then apply to the RSPCA afterwards for the cost of emergency treatment for small wildlife. We are trying to do what we can for bats- we are the most experienced bat carers around here and if we can help we will. If we can't help we will try and point you towards someone else we think could.
