Batwoman - Snap Classic

Summary

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Snap Judgment: "Batwoman - Snap Classic"

Podcast: Snap Judgment & PRX
Original Air Date: October 9, 2025
Host: E.M. Washington
Main Story Reporter: Shaina Shealy
Featured Guests: Mary Warwick, John Facil

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Episode Overview

This dramatic, musical episode of Snap Judgment tells the riveting true story of Mary Warwick, a Houston wildlife rehabber whose Christmas is upended when a deadly cold snap sends over 1,600 bats plummeting from local bridges, and she finds herself turning her home into a massive ad-hoc bat rescue. The episode explores themes of compassion, unexpected heroism, and the deep connections between species, blending immersive sound design and heartfelt storytelling. It also features a personal bat encounter from Snap producer John Facil, highlighting the unexpected ways bats change lives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Bat Emergency Unfolds (04:52–19:26)

Mary Warwick’s Journey into Bat Rescue

• Introduction to Mary: Mary Warwick, a long-standing wildlife rehabilitator, is thrust into bat rescue when no one else in Houston is caring for bats (05:54).
  • “Here's 10 bats. And I have no idea what to do.” – Mary recounting her first bat drop-off ([05:54])
• Early Rescues & Surprising Affection for Bats:
  • Mary initially has no experience with bats but draws on her broad wildlife rehab expertise.
  • Notable moment: “How stinking cute they are.” – Mary Warwick ([07:31])
  • Mary is described as "cursed" with compassion, unable to walk away from an animal in need ([12:13]).

Bat Crisis Begins

• Christmas Vacation Interrupted:

  • Mary’s much-anticipated holiday is derailed as a record freeze hits Houston, causing bats to fall en masse from bridges due to hypothermic shock.
    • “Christmas just went right out of my head and like, I gotta go get a bag…” ([10:15])
  • She collects her first 38 "frozen" bats from the Wah Street Bridge, describing their features and her immediate, automatic response to help ([10:38–11:09]).
    • “They're as hard as a rock. Like, their wings don't droop or anything.” – Mary Warwick ([10:51])

• Rapid Escalation:

  • The rescue quickly snowballs—more bats fall as temperature drops. Mary works through the night triaging, hydrating, and feeding dozens, then hundreds, then over a thousand bats ([17:06–23:39]).
    • “That's when I got 99 bats. I didn't expect 99.” – Mary Warwick ([18:22])
    • By the second night, 130+ bats are in her guest room; then, a bridge in Pearland yields 900 in a single day ([21:55], [23:31]).

Bat Chaos at Home

• Improvising Bat Care:

  • Mary transforms her home—plastic on floors, incubators from closets, humidity and warmth everywhere.
  • "The whole thing just felt so surreal and strange—chasing these bats that looked like they were on death’s doorstep two minutes ago around the house, flying around." ([24:09])

• Family and Community Pitch In:

  • Mary’s family mobilizes, and soon the whole city is watching her rescue stories on social media.
  • The house is overtaken by bats, and the Christmas plans are sidelined by waves of new arrivals. Sympathy and assistance arrive in the form of calls, supplies, and volunteers ([26:24]).

2. Compassion, Limits, and Connection (19:26–32:17)

Wrestling With Responsibility

• Mary’s Emotional Strain:

  • Facing exhaustion and self-doubt, Mary reflects on the limits of her ability to help.
    • “There's only so much I can do as one person... Once you've taken all these animals in, they're your responsibility.” ([19:07])
  • Worry about the ongoing freeze and risk to the bats is palpable.
    • “My main fear... was I was afraid that the freeze was going to go on a very long time. You know, we could lose them all...” ([29:12])

• Moments of Humor and Humanity:

  • Family jokes about the “distinctive bat smell” invading holiday gatherings ([27:36]).
  • Mary mulls, “who's gonna love coming over here for Christmas Eve, 'cause it smells like bat” ([28:02]).
  • She gives up on Christmas prep: “Can you just take all those bins and put them back in the attic? Because it's not getting done.” ([25:33])

Bats as Social Creatures

• Shared Connection and Empathy Across Species:
  • Mary is moved by how the bats seem to recognize one another, greeting new arrivals from their own colonies ([28:48–30:01]):
    • “As soon as they would hear the bats that I was bringing in start to chatter or anything, the bat from that colony... would start getting super excited and chattery. It was like they knew those bats, like, 'Hey, that's Bob.'”
    • “I guess it crosses species lines, doesn't it? ... Nobody wants to be alone. You know, our connection here downstairs as humans and their connection up. I just... I think that gives life a large meaning. We all need connection.” – Mary Warwick ([31:46])

3. The Grand Bat Release (32:17–35:37)

Organizing and Celebrating Survival

• A City Joins In:

  • As the weather breaks, Mary organizes a massive public release, inviting people who have followed her journey to witness the event ([32:54–34:16]).
  • The scene is joyous and emotional, with Mary personally encouraging each bat as it flies to freedom:
    • “Ooh, I'll give you a five. You know, you struggled a little bit, but you pulled it off or whatever. Or you’re a 10. You just took off right away and you look strong.” – Mary Warwick ([34:42])
  • For those that struggled, she quietly took them home to try again later.

• Closure, Hope, and Reflection:

  • Watching bats take flight, Mary feels deep satisfaction and gratitude. The community support and shared experience solidify a sense of meaning and purpose.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On Life Purpose and Rescue:
  “I love what I do. I would never leave an animal out there. But there are times it’s like, you know, I just want a day to relax.” – Mary Warwick ([08:21])

• On the Relentlessness of Compassion:
  “Do you ever feel that you’re cursed with being extremely compelled to save animals?”
  — “Yes. Like, why does this have to happen right now? Like, I always feel like you have to try. I just can’t not do it.” – Mary Warwick ([12:07])

• On Unconventional Christmases:
  “Nobody in our family other than us are really animal people... I wanted to have everybody here regardless of whatever else was going on.” – Mary Warwick ([25:42–25:52])

• On Community and Connection:
  “I guess it crosses species lines, doesn’t it?... Nobody wants to be alone.” – Mary Warwick ([31:46])

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Segment Timestamps

| Time | Segment/Story | |----------|--------------| | 04:51 | Host introduces Mary Warwick’s bat story; setup at Houston Humane Society. | | 05:54 | Mary’s first unexpected bat rescue. | | 07:01 | Falling in love with rehabilitating bats. | | 10:05 | The Christmas cold snap: first bridge rescue. | | 13:09 | Drive home with the first batch of bats. | | 17:06 | Second late-night bridge run; 99 more bats rescued. | | 21:48 | Expanding the rescue—300+ bats per bin, new bridge discovered. | | 23:31 | The home bat crisis: 1,600+ bats and no plan. | | 26:24 | Community mobilization—bats pour in, house transforms. | | 32:54 | Weather breaks, city gathers for massive bat release. | | 34:20 | Emotional release of bats, watching them fly to freedom. | | 35:37 | Credits and transition to John Facil’s story. |

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Producer’s Story: John Facil’s Life-Changing Bat Encounter (36:54–44:02)

• John’s “Origin Story” in Journalism:
  • As a frustrated post-grad canvasser, John stumbles upon a bat on the streets of Chicago ([37:15]).
  • The serendipitous encounter inspires him to quit a soul-sapping job, which immediately leads to his first break in journalism.
  • Humorous and relatable: presenting the bat to his supervisor and using it as a quitting “prop” ([39:42]).
  • Touching reflection:
    • “In that moment, it's like all the wonder in the world just filled my heart. And I forgot all my problems. And I'm like, you know, there's magic out there and I'm missing it every second I spend doing something that I hate.” – John Facil ([38:14])
    • “God bless the bat.” ([43:51])

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Overarching Themes

• Unexpected heroism and responsibility — How one person, in the face of overwhelming odds, can galvanize a community and redefine what’s possible.
• The struggle and joy of compassion — Mary’s inability to walk past suffering reveals both the burden and the beauty of deep empathy.
• Interconnectedness — Whether bat or human, none of us want to be alone; connection is essential for survival and meaning.
• Everyday magic — As John’s tale shows, profound change can appear in the most mundane moments, if we are open to wonder.

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Summary Takeaway

"Batwoman" is a testament to the outsized impact ordinary individuals can have when moved by compassion and a sense of responsibility. Through Mary Warwick’s relentless, chaotic, and ultimately triumphant rescue, and John Facil’s career-changing encounter, the episode challenges us to care more deeply—not just for animals, but for one another—while finding the humor, humanity, and joy even in chaos. This is storytelling with a beat, a heart, and a call to action: stay open to magic, and always help a creature in need.

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Transcript

[Host/Announcer]

SNAP Studios.

[David Remnick]

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[Host/Announcer]

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[David Remnick]

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[Sponsor Voice]

Today's episode is sponsored by Strawberry Me. Let's be honest. Are you happy with your job?

[Narrator/Reporter]

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[Host/Announcer]

How about some good news for a change? Because there's a cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door. And not just any thc. Fast acting gummies designed to target specific moods and needs. I'm talking about Mood.com's incredible line of functional gummies. And. And you can get 20% off your first [e-mail] with promo code SNAP. So head to mood.com, find the functional gummy that matches exactly what you're looking for, and let Mood help you discover your perfect mood. And don't forget to use the promo code SNAP when you check out to save 20% on your first order. Okay, so first you gotta understand. I'm chilling. Chilling house sitting for some fancy people. This beautiful, gorgeous estate. Like something out of a James Bond movie. Each of the bathrooms bigger than my entire apartment. And I'm king of this castle for two full weeks. All I gotta do is make sure nobody like me gets in here. Private movie theater, wine cellar, infinity pool. No secret lair worth its salt can be a secret lair without the Infinity Po. So it's there, in the pool. I reclined on the flotation device, the cocktail shaking not stirred, sweating in the cup holder, even as nighttime descends upon the city below. I said I was chillin'. And then, then this Keeney. Chittering, clicking. A man sized shadow, a specter, drops from the sky just above the far end of the pool. Terror. I see terror. In the darkness. I see him gliding, gliding maybe 2, 3 inches above the water. Gliding directly toward me. Closer, closer. And I can't even scream as this shadow passes through, directly over my nose. And then I'm under the water, flailing, frantic, crazed, running for the house. More shadows fall from the sky. Blind fear. I dive, soaking wet into the house, kicking the door behind me. And the phone rings. I snatch it up like it's holy water. Hello? Hello? Hi, Glenn. Hope you're enjoying the place. Just wanted to let you know, if you're lucky, a little after sunset, you might see the foxes. The what? The flying foxes. And it's taken me a while. I'm from Michigan. I know foxes don't fly. The bats. The bats. They sometimes swoop down to drink from the pool. Some of them are just huge. They're super fun to see.

[John Facil]

Oh.

[Host/Announcer]

Oh, I didn't notice. Thanks for letting me know. I'll be sure to look out for him. Sure, sure, sure. Well, today on Snap Judgment and Exploration, a journey, a communion across space and time between species. From KQED and Stamp Studios, we proudly present Batwoman. My name is Lynn Washington. Flying monsters drinking from your swimming pool. You might want to tell the houseguests about it first when you're listening to Snap Judgment. Now then, we begin with Mary Warrick. Mary. She'd been working at the Houston Humane Society Wildlife center for years treating sick animals, when a woman showed up at her doorstep with a shoebox full of bats.

[David Remnick]

She's like, here's 10 bats. And I have no idea what to do.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary also didn't know what to do. Actually, no one in Houston was rehabilitating bats at the time. But Mary had cared for all kinds of animals.

[David Remnick]

Owls, always squirrels and opossums.

[Narrator/Reporter]

And she often records parts of those rescues on her phone to share with her followers.

[David Remnick]

Hi, it's Mary. I'm out here on Galveston island on a late Friday night getting ready to release some opossums. Let's take the first one out and you will hear them.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She once rehabbed a duck named Woody who lived in her bathtub for weeks. Then there was a hawk missing a beak that recuperated in her guest room. And at some point, she had a confiscated South American coat staying in her bathroom.

[David Remnick]

I still have teeth marks in my glasses where she bit. I've brought home animals since I was a tiny, tiny kid, so it's just something in my DNA, I guess.

[Narrator/Reporter]

So she took the box of bats. Wild bats. They live in caves and under bridges and can carry rabies.

[David Remnick]

But at the same time, you're in awe. Like there's this flying mammal in your hands and their ears are moving around back and forth, picking up stuff, and they have little scrunched noses that are constantly moving around and sniffing. They do a lot of, like, lip licking and then they chatter a lot. They're funny. Like they're so small and really super cute.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She started learning about wild bats little by little. What was the most surprising thing you learned?

[David Remnick]

How stinking cute they are.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary rehabbed nearly all 10 of the bats. She returned them to the wild and went on with her life. Back to caring for possums and squirrels and less common animals like a baby otter who was fished out of a ship channel by a tugboat operator.

[David Remnick]

Nobody else would go pick her up, so I went out and got her.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She named the otter Tug and gave tug antibiotics and bottle fed her until she died in Mary's bathtub.

[David Remnick]

She was in a warm, safe place and was getting care. That made me feel better. But, yeah, it was just devastating, extremely heartbreaking.

[Narrator/Reporter]

But the loss didn't slow Mary down. She kept taking in stray animals.

[David Remnick]

I love what I do. I would never leave an animal out there. But there are times it's like, you know, I just want a day to relax.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Last winter, Mary was finally about to get a break. An entire two weeks of vacation. Over Christmas time, her whole family would be coming into town to celebrate. 20 people. On her last day of work, she went to a holiday party.

[David Remnick]

My boss from the Houston Humane Society was here for that party and he was saying, you know, we're going to get a cold snap. We're going to probably have a lot of calls where we need to help people with dogs. So it looks like I'm not going to get any time off for the holiday. So I'm like, oh, poor you. Sorry. I'm going to be off and having a good time. See you at the beginning of the year.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She got home and did not set her alarm for the first day of her vacation. She woke up slow. Got bins of Christmas decorations down from the Attic lights, Santa figurines. A faux tree with shimmering glitter that's supposed to look like ice crystals.

[David Remnick]

The person that wants to make the house beautiful before the holidays, decorating and washing all of our china, you know, washing wine glasses. And I'm that person with a full.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Three days before Christmas, she took her time. After she put up a few lights, she put on her heaviest coat and went out to run errands. Last minute gifts for nieces and nephews. It was 22 degrees out and then.

[David Remnick]

Started thinking, oh, gosh, you know, it's really cold. So I headed up to the bridge just to go see if anything was going on up there. I didn't expect to see anything because I hadn't gotten any calls.

[Narrator/Reporter]

The Wah Street Bridge, where hundreds of thousands of bats make their home each year. Mary knew this kind of cold weather would be a problem for these bats.

[David Remnick]

And then I walk up and I see this guy staring at the ground. He's looking at a bat that looks dead. And then as I looked down the walkway, there were lots of bats. They look like a piece of bark just laying on the ground. Christmas just went right out of my head and like, I gotta go get a bag. And I just. It's just an automatic response.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary went back to her car and dumped a box full of tools out into the trunk. She took the empty box and just.

[David Remnick]

Went around and scooped them up.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary picked up bat after bat after bat.

[David Remnick]

They're as hard as a rock. Like, their wings don't droop or anything. Everything's just like, drawn in. Their wings are close to their sides. Their little heads are kind of tucked down, their feet are tucked up. Their eyes were all closed. They were trying to keep warm. So they were just kind of crunched up as much as they could be, like a big piece of mulch.

[Narrator/Reporter]

In most cold climates, bats go south in the winter. But in Houston, they stay all year round. It's not supposed to get this cold here. When it does, though, the freezing temperatures can cause the bats to go into.

[David Remnick]

Hypothermic shock as their metabolism shuts down. They don't have the strength to hold on anymore. And they eventually just release. And they're hanging upside down, so they hit the ground with their heads most of the time.

[Narrator/Reporter]

These bats had dropped 30ft head first onto concrete.

[David Remnick]

And, you know, my heart just broke. These bats had fallen and people are just riding their bikes and, you know, walking by or whatever, and nobody thought to do anything like, why can't I be the person that just walks by Yeah, I don't know how to do that. I don't even know. I would feel horrible.

[Narrator/Reporter]

And do you ever feel that you're cursed with being extremely compelled to save animals?

[David Remnick]

Yes. Like, why does. Why does this have to happen right now? Like, I always feel like you have to try. I just can't not do it.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary counted the bats as she scooped them into the box. There were 38 of them. And did anyone see you picking up the bats? Like, did anyone see you and say, like, hey, what are you doing? Or give you a strange look?

[David Remnick]

When you turn 50 as a woman, people do not notice what you're doing anymore. Nobody said a word to me, so I just snatched them up as fast as I could and got him to my car.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She put the box full of bats in the passenger seat and turned on the seat warmer.

[David Remnick]

I just literally piled them all on top of each other. I didn't know if they were alive or dead.

[Narrator/Reporter]

With her shopping plans out the window, Mary began driving the 45 minutes from the bridge to her house with a box full of bats in her passenger seat.

[David Remnick]

Just kept kind of looking over as I was driving home to see if they'd started moving around, and they did. At least some are alive. Oh, this is awesome. Some of them got a little bit more rambunctious as we drove, so I covered the box eventually because I didn't want them starting to climb out. So, yay, they're alive. Okay, so now when I get home, I'm gonna have to set up just kind of in my head planning, like, what am I gonna do?

[Narrator/Reporter]

45 minutes, Mary pulled up into her driveway and brought a box, now full of squirming bats, into the house. Her husband met her at the door.

[David Remnick]

So I think he was just kind of amused to watch me figure it out.

[Narrator/Reporter]

When you say amused, like, what does that look like? What he.

[David Remnick]

Like, he just kind of gets this funny grin on his face and, you know, like, oh, okay, well, here you go again. Like, have fun, you know? Yeah.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She immediately got to work and recorded a message for her followers.

[David Remnick]

Hi, this is Mary from the Houston Humane Society. On the way back, the bats started coming to. So we believe they're all alive. We're going to start triaging them right now.

[Narrator/Reporter]

First, she transformed the guest room into a rehab room. She covered the floors in plastic. She pulled incubators from the closet and covered the inside of the boxes with mesh and fleece where the bats could hang and cuddle up with each other.

[David Remnick]

To give you a quick look at the bats before we start. That's a lot of bats. You can see some of them moving. So we will give them. We will let them warm up in our incubator or in this room.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She put humidifiers around the room and warmed up worms and also cups and.

[David Remnick]

Cups of fluid and then started pulling out the bats one by one to do a little examination to see if they had fractures or, you know, who was dead, who was alive, all that kind of stuff. You know, they'd been through a lot, but they were moving around and they were all alive and nobody had fractures.

[Narrator/Reporter]

To help hydrate them, Mary filled syringes up with warm fluid and placed the syringes on a heating pad to keep them warm. She took the bats one by one.

[David Remnick]

Into her hand and then bring my left pointer and thumb together and pinch a little bit of skin and inject the fluids under that.

[Narrator/Reporter]

After she injected the fluid, she was ready to feed them. She pulled the heads off a bunch of worms she had warmed up and.

[David Remnick]

Then squeezed some of the goo out of the worm with my right hand and just kind of tap it against their little mouth. And usually if I can get a little bit of liquid to get through their gums or through their lips, then they'll kind of like, oh, that tastes good. Their tongues are like. They come to a point and they lick their lips a lot and their noses are kind of going. And that first time when they start eating is such a relief.

[Narrator/Reporter]

After the bats ate, Mary put them back into the incubator one at a time.

[David Remnick]

I spent quite a bit of time just kind of staring at them, seeing them kind of have little squabbles with each other, and somebody would get mad at the other one. And so, you know, one bat would leave this little group and move over to another group or whatever, and then kind of cause a ruckus over there. And then everybody would calm down or, you know, it just. There was always some kind of chatter going on in there, and it's like they're very social, so they're communicating with each other. Everybody was doing lots of things.

[Narrator/Reporter]

By the time she got the bath settled, the sun had set. She also noted that outside the temperature had dropped.

[David Remnick]

More were going to come. You know, until it warmed up, we were going to continue to get bats that dropped.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary grabbed her headlamp and got back into her car. It was around 10pm when she got back to the WA Bridge.

[David Remnick]

That bridge has two hike and bike paths. One's high, one's low, and then after the low one, there's a slanted thing that goes down into the bayou. And so there's three levels to check. And there were bats on every level.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Cold still bats.

[David Remnick]

It's like, whoa, there's a lot more here than there were before.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She had come prepared, this time with a bigger box. Mary scooped up the small still bats from the ground and again piled them on top of each other in the box. It was nearly midnight when she got them all into the car.

[David Remnick]

My brain was kind of going again, like, okay, I don't know how many bats are here, but there's a lot. Like, how am I going to divvy them up in the incubators and how am I going to deal with this number of bats now? Just kind of, you know, your brain's going a million miles an hour, kind of really super focused, your heart's going a little bit and everything else kind of disappears.

[Narrator/Reporter]

On the drive home, she kept checking in on the bats, like, come on.

[David Remnick]

Like anybody in there.

[Narrator/Reporter]

When she got them into her house, she immediately went into triage mode, checking the bats for head injuries, broken bones.

[David Remnick]

Every time I'd reach my hand and I hope it's alive.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She counted the number of bats that had survived the fall.

[David Remnick]

That's when I got 99 bats. I didn't expect 99. I didn't expect 99.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary fed and hydrated these 99 bats. She hadn't had a chance to check on that first batch of 30. She worried about how they'd fared over the past few hours in the incubator.

[David Remnick]

I wanted to make sure that my attention didn't get away from them to the other bats to their detriment.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She counted over 130 bats in her guest room. By the time she got the new batch of bats warmed up and settled in, it was past 2 in the morning.

[David Remnick]

I think when I got into bed. You know, that's when everything kind of catches up with you afterwards.

[Narrator/Reporter]

That's when Mary realized she didn't have a plan.

[David Remnick]

I still didn't know what I was going to do with them. Like once we got them triaged. I hadn't gotten that far yet, so I was still freaking out. There's only so much I can do as one person. Once you've taken all these animals in, they're your responsibility.

[Host/Announcer]

No plan. Over 130 wild bats in our home. And Mary, Mary can't help but wonder, will the bats even make it through the night? Stay tuned. Uncommon Goods makes holiday shopping stress free and joyful with thousands of one of A kind gifts you can't find anywhere else. Like I found a pop up mystery escape room game. It's wacky and fun and weird and it's really the gift of time with all the people I love. So shop early, have fun and cross some names off your list today. To get 15% off your next gift, go to UncommonGoods.com snap that's UncommonGoods.com snap for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. When last we left, Mary had taken over 130 wild bats into her home. Would she actually be able to help snap judgment?

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary closed her eyes just hoping the bats would survive the night, hoping it would warm up in the morning and she could return the bats back to the bridge. But when she woke up and checked the weather, she saw it was even colder than the day before, less than 25 degrees out. She checked on the bats in her guest room. Every one of them had survived the night.

[David Remnick]

Makes me feel good to see their little chipper shining eyes and kind of looking around, all kind of cuddled in separate corners.

[Narrator/Reporter]

It was two days before Christmas, but instead of dealing with the bins of decorations stacked in the hallway, Mary put on her warmest socks, her warmest boots. She knew that her at home rehab room had reached capacity, but she also knew that there would be even more bats in danger. So she drove back down to the Wall street bridge and there she found dozens of bats on the ground. Mary picked them up, put them into her car and drove towards this other bridge about a half hour away in Pearland.

[David Remnick]

This is a really small bridge, so I head down there and think I'm probably going to pick up 30 or 40 more bats.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary parked her car near the bridge.

[David Remnick]

I start walking down the little embankment and turn and look under the bridge and it's just covered with bats. And I just like, oh no.

[Narrator/Reporter]

And she recorded on her cell phone.

[David Remnick]

More bats in Pearland. Fortunately, some fish brown over here. It was just covered under the bridge with bats. And there were some that had tried to move and there was that little creek and so there were a lot of drowned bats in the water. It was just like horrible scene. I went back up to my car and just started dumping out these big huge plastic bins. I had three of them and started loading bats up in those three bins. 300 in each bin.

[Narrator/Reporter]

At first, Mary collected 600 bats.

[David Remnick]

And that's when I was like, oh my God, how am I going to take care of all these bats. Oh my gosh, you know, where am I going to put all these aren't going to fit in two incubators. What am I going to do with these bats? Like, there's no way I can keep all these animals alive. I can't, I can't triage all of them effectively. I can't give them all fluids. I can't force feed them. I can't. You know, there's just no way.

[Narrator/Reporter]

But Mary being Mary, put the three bins of bats into the backseat of her car without a plan and then.

[David Remnick]

Just headed home, cranked up the heater in the car and headed home. There were 900 bats that fell from that bridge.

[Narrator/Reporter]

When she got home, Mary called up a colleague for help. They had 900 bats to check. Dead bats went into Mary's kitchen freezer. Live ones went back into the bins. It took hours.

[David Remnick]

And so we're sitting on the floor and we started going through them. And then as they were warming up, some of them became fully alive and just took off.

[Narrator/Reporter]

As soon as Mary put bats into a bin, others would wake up and fly off.

[David Remnick]

The whole thing just felt so surreal and strange to be chasing these bats that look like they were on death's doorstep two minutes ago, you know, around the house, flying around.

[Narrator/Reporter]

One bat got away and somehow got into the kitchen.

[David Remnick]

My two cats are sitting on the kitchen table looking up and the dog is sitting on the floor looking up and their heads are going round and round. So I'm like, oh. I look up and there's a bat. And my first thought was, oh my gosh, you know, if it lands and they, and they get it, number one, they'll injure it or it can injure them.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary immediately hopped up onto the countertop with her net.

[David Remnick]

And the bat's just going in circles the whole time.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She couldn't catch it and her animals freaked out.

[David Remnick]

The dog and two of my cats were chasing a bat around the house. It's just flying around in circles and they're all running around in circles. What's gonna happen if I can't catch this bat?

[Sponsor Voice]

Will it land?

[David Remnick]

Will it just keep flying around forever?

[Narrator/Reporter]

After nearly an hour long bat chase, Mary finally got the bat into a bin.

[David Remnick]

It was getting to be kind of a comedy of errors. After a while, there was just nowhere to contain everything. So, like, what do we do from here?

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary needed space. She looked at the bins of bats in one corner of the hallway and then to the boxes of Christmas decorations In the other, I was just like.

[David Remnick]

Hey, can you just take all those bins and put them back in the attic? Because it's not getting done.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She was a little concerned some of her family members might not want to come over for dinner.

[David Remnick]

Nobody in our family other than us are really animal people.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She hadn't washed the china or finished cleaning, but still, we love to have.

[David Remnick]

The holidays here and I wanted to have everybody here regardless of whatever else was going on.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She texted her family about the bats in her house and made sure to say it was safe and she'd still be hosting dinner tomorrow. She put her phone down, but only for a moment because that's when the calls started coming in. People had seen the videos she had posted. They're very chirpy.

[David Remnick]

They seem be to settled in. We only lost one last night. That's the top. That's all we're. I'm getting calls from other people, you know, about other bats at Wall Bridge because more bats are starting to fall. So then I start organizing like people who can go pick up the bats for me and bring them to my house.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Someone came by with 30 bats. Another dropped off 50. By the end of the day, Mary had around 1200 bats in her house. She took heat lamps up to the attic and created this little bat cave up there.

[David Remnick]

So I just kind of did an assembly line thing and started giving them fluids that way. And then I had the other bats still that I had to care for.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary was up late into the night. When she finally got into bed, her heart was pounding.

[David Remnick]

What could happen tomorrow if I get more, really, what am I going to do?

[Narrator/Reporter]

When Mary woke up, it was Christmas Eve. The last two days had been a blur and she hadn't gotten any of the things on her Christmas prep list done. She handed the list to her husband, who would be in charge of cooking this year.

[David Remnick]

I was just kind of circulating between the bats upstairs, the bats down here, and kind of checking in with him and just kind of doing little bits of things that I could. Throughout the day, my rehab room was just piled up with little boxes. People had been bringing bats in and a trash can full of used syringes. It was just. I wasn't clearing anything out. It was just piling up. It was a mess. And bats have a very distinctive smell. And so that whole part of my house just smelled like real strong musky bat, which was driving me insane. I was kind of joking, like, whoa, everybody's gonna love coming over here for Christmas Eve. Cause it smells like bat.

[Narrator/Reporter]

But before Mary could come up with a plan to cover up the smell. More people showed up at her house with more boxes of bats. By now, people from all over Houston were watching those videos she'd been posting of bats in her house and under the bridges.

[David Remnick]

There was just so much going on. I mean, there were so many phone calls.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She went out to buy two dog crates from the pet store, big enough for German shepherds. She put them in her attic.

[David Remnick]

I just grab handfuls of bats, you know, gently place them in there. So in total so far, we just got 80 new bats in this morning. So in total so far we have 1544 bats in care. I think they're incredible. They're all doing well, as you see, can, can see. And as soon as they would hear the bats that I was bringing in start to chatter or anything, the bat from that colony, not the other colony, but that colony, would start getting super excited and like chattery and running around the cage. It was like they knew those bats, like, hey, that's Bob. You know, I hear Bob, Bob's coming, or whatever, you know. And that was amazing to me, those interactions with each other and how excited they would get to see each other when I would put the new one in the enclosure and they would all come and check him out, you know, any of them could have taken a turn for the worse. I didn't know. I was afraid. My main fear I think at that point was I was afraid the freeze was going to go on a very long time. You know, we could lose them all if the freeze went on too long.

[Narrator/Reporter]

When the sun went down on Christmas eve, it was 25 degrees outside.

[David Remnick]

So it was still a concern. It was a concern that we would continue to get more and more.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary woke up early on Christmas Day. The bats were in the attic. Her husband was downstairs cooking ham. And then her doorbell rang. This time it was her son, his kids, her mother in law. Soon, in addition to the 1600 baths stowed away in the attic, there were around 20 people in her house.

[David Remnick]

Everybody commented on the smell. So I just got the bats out of the way at first. Like as people came in, I said, do you want to go see the bats real quick before, you know, we move on? And so those who did, I walked them up. We have a walk in attic. So I walked them up to the attic, quietly let them look into both of the containers to see what it was like. And then we left.

[Narrator/Reporter]

And Mary went with her family to the dining room table. It was the first time in days she'd Put on real clothes and sat down for a proper meal.

[David Remnick]

I knew I had done everything I could for the bats at that point. And it did feel good to me knowing that they were up there and they were settled and quiet and had everything they needed. And then I was allowed to be settled and quiet and spend time with my family and focus on that. I could let that I could let the bats go for that little period of time.

[Narrator/Reporter]

She thought about the bats upstairs, how they got so excited every time another bat would come into an incubator.

[David Remnick]

I guess it crosses species lines, doesn't it? I mean, nobody wants to be alone. You know, our connection here downstairs as humans and their connection up, I just. I think that gives life a large meaning. We all need connection.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary told her family she appreciated them.

[David Remnick]

And how much, you know, they really meant to me that everybody was just kind of rolling with what we were doing.

[Narrator/Reporter]

A few more bats came in that night.

[David Remnick]

I was keeping a tally. I think it was like 1645, something like that. I understand it's weird to most people that what I do is unusual or maybe strange or something like that, but I ended up with 1600 bats in my head. Go for the holiday. I'm here to give you an update on our bats, but first I wanted to give you a couple other pieces of information as well. We are going to try to release the bats Wednesday evening, so if you are interested in seeing the release. Down at the Wall street Bridge.

[Narrator/Reporter]

After six long days since Mary brought those first 30 bats home, the weather finally started warming up. The temperature had climbed to around 45 degrees. Mary sent out an invitation on social media to a bat release event where all those people who had been following along through her videos could come out and see the bats for real.

[David Remnick]

And I didn't know if all the bats were going to fly out or if none of them were going to fly out. It didn't really matter.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Mary got to the bridge early, just before dusk, with bins of over 1,600 bats. There were dozens of people there waiting for the bats to fly from their cozy incubators back into the world. Mary taped off the entire underbelly of the bridge. It smelled like bat guano.

[David Remnick]

And then there's the chirping of the bats over my head. And then there's the chirping of the bats in the container as well in the enclosure. And so they're getting more and more active and excited and the bats above me are getting more and more excited. And I'm talking to people and explaining what we're doing, the bats in the enclosure are starting to, like, go around in circles and get all excited because they hear their. Their bat. They're like, shut up, lady. Let's go.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Finally, Mary unzipped the enclosure of the dog crate.

[David Remnick]

So when the bats are trying to climb out, they'd have to go around a lip, and they really couldn't figure that out. So I was reaching in with my hands with gloves and then just holding them up, and then they would. They would go out, and it was just so exciting, you know, as each.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Bat flew towards the bridge, she'd talk.

[David Remnick]

To them, Ooh, I'll give you a five. You know, you struggled a little bit, but you pulled it off or whatever. Or you're a 10. You just, you know, took off right away and you look strong or whatever. Just kind of chit chatting with them as they were taking off. And then I had a couple that didn't succeed there as well.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Those bats that didn't make it, she put them in a different container to.

[David Remnick]

Take them home and put them in a different container and then kept releasing. To see these bats taking off and going up under the bridge, they would just glide out, kind of go over the bayou and up into the crevices of the bridge itself. It's just so heartwarming. I was so happy for that, that bat to be able to go back home.

[Host/Announcer]

Huge, gigantic thanks to Mary Warrick for sharing her story. And thanks as well to the Houston Humane Society, the TWRC Wildlife center, and the batworld Sanctuary in Texas, or, whose staff protect and rehabilitate bats and provide education and training on the proper treatment of bats to people all over the United States. The original score for that piece was by Dirk Schwarzoff. It was produced by Shaina Shealy. Now, after the break, more chirps in echolocation. A backstory from one of our very own SNAP producers. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. My name is E.M. washington, and I heard tale of this story that Snap Judgment's old John Facil has a special affinity for bats, something you don't hear very often. And finally, finally I sat down and asked him about it. I don't know what this story is. I don't know. I know that it involves an animal of some sort.

[John Facil]

Well, so, you know, we're doing this episode about bats, and I have a story about an encounter with a bat that changed my life. I certainly wouldn't have become a journalist. I wouldn't be sitting here with you.

[Host/Announcer]

No exaggeration.

[John Facil]

No exaggeration.

[Host/Announcer]

This story with a bat changed the course of your life.

[John Facil]

Yeah. Yeah. So right after college, I was working like a series of odd jobs, as you do. And the last one in a string of jobs I had was I was working as a street canvasser for this charity that, like, helps provide food and clothes for poor kids.

[Host/Announcer]

So you're the guy who's like, can I talk to you for a minute?

[John Facil]

Yeah, yeah, I was that guy. Well, very briefly. So I'll explain. I got this job, there was a week of training involved, and then they put you out on the street. And my very first day on the street, I was in downtown Chicago, you know, right near the Picasso sculpture. I pretty quickly, within like an hour, realized I was just terrible at this job. Like, I felt so uncomfortable approaching people and nobody wanted to talk to me. You know, they could sense it. People were just blowing by me, like, hi, do you have any time for like, nope, sorry, gotta go. I gotta perform open heart surgery in 15 minutes. You know, like, just making stuff up.

[Host/Announcer]

Wow.

[John Facil]

And seems like a hard job. Yeah. And it's also a weird job because, like, the thing was that you. You get commission on the donations. So it kind of felt like, I don't know, like I was trying to move these poor kids. Like there were cars or something. I start going into this existential crisis. Like, why am I here? What am I doing? Am I just supposed to live this life going from job to job, barely making enough money to cover rent and ramen? And I'm thinking all this stuff. And then I look down at my feet and on the pavement right there, there's this little brown ball. And at first I thought it was like, trash, like a dirty cotton ball or something. But then ever so gently with my foot, I kind of turn it over, and this bat just spreads its wings out wide and opens its mouth like it's yawning. And in that moment, it's like all the wonder in the world just filled my heart. And I forgot all my problems. And I'm like, you know, there's magic out there and I'm missing it every second I spend doing something that I hate. But I don't really have time to dwell on that because clearly this bat needs help. It's stunned. Maybe it flew into a building. So I ran into a nearby Walgreens and I go up to the middle aged manager and I'm like, I need a box. I need a cardboard box. And the guy's like, what? Like, this is Walgreens. We don't just Hand out cardboard boxes. And I said, but you don't understand. There's a bat outside and I need a help it. And he's like, oh. Like, he flips the switch. He's like, hold on, hold on. He runs into the back, grabs me a cardboard box. I'm like, thank you. I run outside, carefully, scoop up the bat, close the box. And so my plan is to take this bat to a park and release it. But first I'm like, I don't ever want to come back to this job again. I gotta quit this damn job. So I was gonna have to quit to two people. It would be awkward, you know, because, like, they've paid me for a week of training. I'm very conflict averse. This is not gonna go well. The first person I had to quit to was my shift supervisor. And she was posted up at some food court. So I found her at a table, and as I'm approaching her, I start getting nervous, like, oh, man, like, what am I gonna do? What if she's really mad? And then I get this idea that, like, maybe this sense of wonder that I had seeing the bat, maybe I could use that to my advantage here. So I go up to the shift supervisor and I'm like, hey, you wanna see something cool? I found a bat on the street. I open the box and show it to her, and she's like, oh, my gosh. Wow. And I go, yeah. And then I close the box and tell her, also, I'm quitting. She's like, what? But I split. I go a couple blocks over to the canvassing operations center where the guy who hired me is sitting at a desk, go up to him, open the box. Hey, I found a bat. Oh, my God.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Cool.

[David Remnick]

Wow.

[John Facil]

Close the box. Also, I'm quitting. So I get on the train home and I'm just, like, glowing, you know, with this experience. But that wears off pretty quick when I get back to the apartment and the bat wakes up and it is not happy. It is like, where am I? This cave is too small. It starts scratching and clawing and making these, like, demonic noises like, like trying to get out. And I'm like, oh, God, what have I done? I have a winged rat in a flimsy cardboard box. Like, what if it has rabies? What if it bites me? I don't have good health insurance. Like, what am I gonna do? So really quickly, I, like, sprint with the box over to the park a few blocks away, which is Humboldt Park. And I pull open one of the flaps and just fling the box out into the air to get it as far away from me as. And while it's in midair, the bat flies out and just takes off across Humboldt park lagoon and into the night. So the next week, since I've got all this free time now, since I quit my job, I end up going to this documentary screening where I met the guy who would give me my first job working on documentaries, which was my first job, anything journalism related. I hadn't planned on this career. And you know, that set me on the path to like some dozen years later being here with you.

[Host/Announcer]

Wow. Be real with me.

[John Facil]

Yeah.

[Host/Announcer]

If there was no bad, would you be here right now?

[John Facil]

I don't know, because I don't think I would have quit that job that day. I really needed the money. It was a bad idea to quit. You know, I probably had like 40 bucks in my bank account, so I don't know what would have happened, to be honest.

[Host/Announcer]

Well, you heard it from John Facil.

[John Facil]

God bless the bat.

[Host/Announcer]

Big thanks to our own John Facile. The original score for that story was by Dirk Sorts off Now. Do you know what's better than hearing a story? Giving one. And you can give the gift of story. This very Batwoman snap episode you can send to family and friends through the Snap Judgment podcast. It will be forever grateful and gaze at you with a look of fierce appreciation and deep pride every. Every single time you walk into a room. Just imagine. Snapjudgment.org and did I mention Stamp's evil twin podcast spoof is available everywhere. Stamp is brought to you by the team that knows bats are our friends, especially the uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich, who hangs upside down to sleep every single night. To the right of me communicating in super high echolocation is Nancy Lopez. There's Pat Messini, Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorilla, John the Bat Boy, Facil, Shayna Shealy, Teo Da Cott, Flo Wylie, Marissa Dodge, Bo Walsh, David Exime and Regina Beniaco. On Team Stamp, the union represented producers, artists, editors and engineers are members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications workers of America, AFL CIO Local 51. And this. This is not the news. No way is this news. In fact, you could discover that bats are more closely related to primates than they are to rodents. And even while you're digesting this extraordinary fact, you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is prx.