{"id":1173,"date":"2025-09-25T08:31:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T06:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/?p=1173"},"modified":"2025-10-19T10:18:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T08:18:38","slug":"even-the-most-broken-wings-can-fly-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/even-the-most-broken-wings-can-fly-again\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cape Serotine Bat rehab story"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">Even the most broken wings can fly again.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">This brave little male Cape Serotine bat was in the fight of his life after a battle with a cat. When he was rescued, he was in a devastating state \u2014 a massive puncture wound to his back, two severed fingers, and countless holes and tears in both wings. Simply put: he was a mess.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">But even then, he had fight in him. Right after arriving at the clinic, he surprised us all by flying from one end to the other \u2014 despite his injuries. That moment told us everything we needed to know: he wanted to live, and we knew we had to give him that chance.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">His rehab journey began in June with super bat-mom, Claudia. Winter became a season of healing, rest, and plenty of juicy mealworms. Slowly, his wounds closed, new wing membrane grew, and his body began to recover.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">By early August, he started flight training\u2026 and he blew us away. Despite his missing digits, he adapted, compensated, and soared. Smooth direction changes, strong swoops \u2014 he was unstoppable.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">After weeks of training and building strength, he was ready. On Saturday, 13 September, in front of his rescuer and friends, he took to the sky \u2014 this time, wild and free back home where he came from.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">Bats are incredible, resilient creatures \u2014 and this little soul is proof that with care, compassion, and a lot of determination, even the most broken wings can fly again.<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Thank you Claudia for once again pulling out all the stops to ensure this little bat made a full recovery and gets to live a full bat-life back home.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%;\"><center><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?height=476&amp;href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Freel%2F1362821559187600%2F&amp;show_text=false&amp;width=267&amp;t=0\" width=\"267\" height=\"476\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">If you&#8217;d like to contribute to the continued care of wild ones like this, our banking details are below:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Friends of Free Wildlife<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Bank: Nedbank Limited<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Account No: 1135 622 957<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>SWIFT: NEDSZAJJ<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"x14z9mp xat24cr x1lziwak x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">Thank you for helping us keep the wild in wildlife.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 130%;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/friendsoffreewildlife\">Follow us on Facebook for more heartwarming stories.<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even the most broken wings can fly again. This brave little male Cape Serotine bat was in the fight of his life after a battle with a cat. When he [&#8230;]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rescues","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions\/1182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friendsoffreewildlife.co.za\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}