Bat World Sanctuary

Our goals include continuing our mission of educating the public about the importance of bats, promoting the humane treatment of bats in captivity (i.e. zoos, research & media), the conservation of wild bat colonies, and work toward the the reversal of the CDC's decision to allow fruit bats to enter the exotic pet trade.
We also plan to expand our sanctuary in 2014 with the construction of a new facility on land that Bat World Sanctuary (BWS) owns. This larger facility will allows us rescue more bats in jeopardy of entering the cruel pet trade through zoo closures. We recently built a bat castle, a one-of-a-kind man made structure capable of providing habitat for up to 100,000 bats. The bat castle sits on the same land owned by BWS. Once occupied, bats in need of habitat will have a safe refuge where they can live and raise their young for decades to come.

We also plan to build a man-made cave in 2015 or 2016. The cave will be located on a spot of land that has been donated for the project by a contributor.

Our strategy is to continue our educational efforts about bats through social media as well as on the ground educational programs that we provide throughout the US. We also plan to mount a critter cam inside the flight enclosures of the new facility once it is built. This will allow viewing of the bats natural behavior by exposing the intelligence, cleanliness of playfulness that all bats possess. This will allow people to better relate to bats as a whole, and will strengthen the public's desire to protect and conserve bats as a species.

Strategies for completion of the new Bat World Sanctuary facility and the bat castle have already been accomplished. The strategy for building the bat cave involves picking out a prime location on the section of land that has been donated for the project, obtaining construction estimates, and lastly, writing for grants to cover the cost of building the man-made cave.

Founder and President Amanda Lollar has over 20 years experience working with both fruit and insect-eating bats. In 1989, Amanda found an injured bat on a hot Texas sidewalk. She nursed it back to health, and in the process this small helpless creature taught Amanda the enchanting language of bats, sparking her indelible love for this remarkable species. In 1994, Amanda liquidated her furniture business to found Bat World Sanctuary. She has since authored both scientific and popular literature about bats, including her most recent work, Standards and Medical Management for Captive Insectivorous Bats. Amanda is a licensed bat care specialist in the State of Texas, permitted to work with threatened and endangered species, and also holds USFWS permits. Amanda administrates the Bat World's social media pages and has brought the number of fans on the BWS Facebook page from 5,000 to over 50,000 on just three years.
Dottie Hyatt, Bat World Sanctuary's VP, is an active licensed bat specialist and writes grants for the organization. Dottie has been presenting out reach education programs about bats for nearly 10 years to school children as well as adults, and also co-instructs Bat World’s one-day workshops which are held throughout the year. Dottie has had articles in the press from the Washington Post to the Ft. Worth Star Telegram to the Miami Herald. She has also been featured on television and the radio.

Denise Tomlin, BWS's Treasurer. has a Bachelors of Science degree in Biology from Western Michigan University. She is very active in the bat community as a member of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) Taxon Advisory Group for bats and a member of the Florida Bat Working Group. She currently holds licensure from the United State Department of Agriculture, United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Denise has authored various articles and book chapters including some on acclimating bats for use in educational programs, hand rearing of flying foxes, bats of Florida and other topics. She loves the abundance and diversity of Florida’s wildlife, where she currently resides. Denise was instrumental in creating the first standards ever written for bats in captivity. She is a surgical, onological and critical care technician for a veterinary clinic. She is also certified as a veterinary dental technician, and Director of Bat World Everglades.

Kate Rugroden, BWS Director of Special Projects, is a licensed wildlife care professional specializing in bats, raccoons, and opossums. Kate has an extensive background in presenting educational programs utilizing both live animals and artifacts as a docent at the Minnesota Zoo. Kate co-instructs Bat World’s one-day workshops which are held throughout the year.

Over the past 20 years, BWS has worked very hard to become the largest sanctuary, rehabilitation and teaching sanctuary in the world dedicated exclusively to bats. We have trained over 400 bat rehabilitators, conservation scientists, researchers and veterinarians in workshops for the rehabilitation of insectivorous bats, and we have authored and published over a dozen books and scientific papers. We have created a worldwide database to help the public find a bat care professional in their area when they happen upon a grounded/injured bat. BWS has rescued, rehabilitated and released over 15,000 native bats and provided permanent sanctuary for 300 non-releasable bats. We have educated over three-million people through on the ground educational programs, social media, and videos (one which went viral). We have established a bat house projects in Mineral Wells Texas, Stephenville, TX, Clifton, TX and Corrales, NM. We saved a wild colony of 50,000 bats through the purchase of a building the bats had been using as habitat for decades (the building was slated for destruction before we purchased it to save the bats). In the past two years BWS purchased land to relocate, built a bat castle on the land to serve as protected wild bat habitat, and we are in the process of constructing a brand new, larger facility to rescue more bats in need of permanent sanctuary.