Gueydan High School in Vermilion Parish reopened today following a two-day closure for a bat infestation. The initial bat sightings lead school leaders to believe it was a small problem, but Vermilion Schools Superintendent Jerome Puyau said they learned there were about 600 bats inhabiting the school.
“They were going to try to use their crab nets to try and catch them, but after they started looking at these colonies, there weren’t one or two, there were hundreds,” said Puyau.
Puyau said an expert had to be brought in to identify how the bats got into the area, as well as to execute a protocol for getting the bats out, as these types of bats are endangered.
“It’s an old school and it was the old gas type furnaces that were installed in the hallways. When they removed the furnace, it had a clear shot, an open space between the exterior and interior walls. It was a clear space similar to what a cave would be,” said Puyau.
After surveying the amount of bat droppings in the area where the bat colonies were located, Puyau estimated the bats had been in the school for the better part of a decade.
“It appears that it’s approximately five years or more that these bats have been living in this small area. Again, it’s a very old school, but we do not use the heater that is there, so there was no reason to open that space,” said Puyau.
ULM has also seen the closure of Sugar Hall as the result of bats in the buildings AC vents.
