Live Bats with NorCal Bats

Every year, Corky Quirk, founder and director of NorCal Bats, brings live bats to the festival, part of a captive colony of non-releasable education animals built through years of rescue and rehabilitation work. Quirk founded NorCal Bats in 2006 and has lived in Davis since 1989, and also leads sellout bat walks along the Yolo Causeway, home to a colony of roughly 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats.

It is one of the festival's most genuinely educational stations, a chance for kids and adults alike to see, up close and safely, one of the animals most closely associated with Halloween itself and to learn about a colony that lives right under a nearby freeway.

Why this station matters

Most Halloween decor treats bats as a spooky symbol and nothing more. NorCal Bats flips that on its head, using the festival as a chance to explain what these animals actually do: eat enormous quantities of insects, roost in huge colonies, and generally deserve a lot more goodwill than horror movies give them. The organization's non-releasable animals cannot survive in the wild, which is exactly what makes them safe and appropriate for a public education table like this one.

Tips

• Bats are handled entirely by trained NorCal Bats staff; do not attempt to touch or feed them.
• Ask about the organization's Yolo Causeway bat walks if you want to see the wild colony later in the year.
• This station tends to be a highlight for kids who love animals but are too young for the BMX or skydiving crowds.