Bats in McConnel
By: Lauren Kim, Ella Brady, Anvi Bhate, Hannah Park
Early morning light permeated the room, exposing a shadow in the corner—no, a bat. Over the span of two terms, residents of the dorm found themselves sharing their living space with bats. Sightings increased in frequency this past week, and totalled four bat observations.
These included an incident where a bat was found in a lower Lally Lavin’s dorm room. Lavin was sent to the emergency room due to rabies concerns, and received a rabies vaccine. Subsequently, the Academy’s facilities team and outside agency Critter Control sealed potential bat entry points. Since then, no students have reported seeing bats.
“When I woke up to the bat right above my head. It was 6 a.m., so I was too tired to have a real reaction. I threw a towel over it and carried it outside,” Lavin said. “Afterward, I realized ‘Oh my god, there was just a bat right above my head.’ I called the health center, who sent me to the hospital,”
“[It] scared me. Everything was moving too quickly for me to really process it,” she added.
When the sightings began fall term, campus security and dorm residents considered it a controlled situation. “There have been several bat sightings in McConnell last week, and also a couple during fall term in the stairwell,” upper Sabrina Kearney said. “I was initially not too concerned because it seemed like a freak of nature event and the situation was resolved quickly by campus safety.”
“Bats are mainly active in the summer months and enter hibernation mid-October… Occasionally, when in hibernation during fall/winter they will wake up and move around… The bats get inside human spaces, [then] re-enter hibernation,” McConnell dorm head Michelle Soucy explained.
Following the stress from multiple bat sightings, dorm faculty and students alike remained concerned. “It has been very stressful for the students and faculty who live in McConnell,” Soucy expressed worry.
“I find it reassuring that the school is working on resolving this issue, and so far there have been no more sightings,” Kearney said.
Senior Anna Jacobowitz believed that the Academy could have addressed the situation more efficiently. “It was annoying because [animal control] kicked me out of my bed and one of them wasn’t wearing a mask,” she said.
Lavin agreed with Jacobowitz. “Initially, I was very angry with the school, as this was a very preventable situation,” she said. “I've had a long two weeks of advocating for myself and for the dorm, but I'm happy with how the situation has been resolved.”