Brad,
I know most folks go for the obvious on this, that you must have sealed some in during the exclusion and that could be the case.
However,
This time of year I have more dead bats outside larger roosts that have not had any sealing or work done. Whether it is disease,
dehydration or other natural causes, there are many full grown dead bats right now outside my roosts in my state than I've had
outside of pup rearing season.
I would agree with folks, wouldn't hurt to open the holes you sealed, replace the valves and see what happens, but I'll throw another
possibility in too.
Last week we got involved in a local issue where a whole colony of Mexican free-tailed bats took a wrong turn and rather than exiting
the exterior walls they entered and ended up all over above a drop ceiling and fell into many many wall voids and crevices, unable to
escape. I removed 45+ live bats and 35+ dead ones and they are still finding a bat or two each day crawling out of some random
crevice.
I think everyone on here would agree that bats can get into the most ridiculous places and that most of the time "cut and dry" is not
truly the situation.
I would agree with Dave K that better to have the guano than the actual bat as kids of all ages are likely to interact with the critter versus
the droppings.
Bob J. made a great statement about the guano too and how a long time after this can be dislodged and enter the spaces, good for
anyone just starting out to remember, I've had my own growing pains not being long into this and learning from every bat job. Every
colony I see is in a different type of structure and different bat species compound the differences in what we see on the job.
I would expect some bats to "balk" at the excluder devices occasionally as well and if they turn and enter living space or in this case
school space somewhere, they might not find their way back out.
I just removed 120 dead bats from within a cabin that was unused for 3 years. Pups aside, there were a ton of adults that for whatever
reason entered rooms and didn't find their way back out again. This says to me that some of this is just going to happen, but by doing
your best to assure the cones or tubes are up the longest period possible, assures more will leave. Of course another possibility is that
some of the entry points were not identified as primary and sealed, and that those bats were cut off from the exit tubes.
Anyway, think everyone provided some good info, update as you can, interested to know what you find.
Justin