There are a lot of animals far easier to love and care for than bats, but that didn't stop Houston Humane Society from rescuing nearly 1,600 of them from freezing to death.

On Thursday a cold snap in Texas caused these tiny winged mammals to plummet from the sky onto the cold pavement where they would have likely all perished if not for the volunteers who collected them en masse for rehabilitation.

Mary Warwick, the wildlife director at the Houston Humane Society was out according to AP doing some holiday shopping when she began to worry about the Mexican free-tailed bat colony under the Waugh Bridge. Sure enough she found nearly 100 lying stiff on the ground.

Twice a day she would go collect them, put them in carriers on her car's heated seats and then transfer them to incubators in her attic. Volunteers from another bat colony brought in 900 more this week.

Many of the bats, according to the Guardian, needed only a quick hydration boost and some warmth, while others needed to stay in the incubator's heat a while longer.

The Houston Humane Society completed to mass-releases of the bats back under their bridges, one in Pearland Fite Road Bridge, and the other at Waugh Bridge.

In total 1,544 bats were collected and saved by the volunteers, an effort reminiscent of the Texas turtle rescue from last year, when thousands of turtles were cold stunned and could have died.

WS followed the story of animal hospitals, private volunteers, game wardens, and Elon Musk's company SpaceX all joining together over two weeks to save and rehabilitate sea turtles that were being stunned into listlessness by the winter storm that arrived on the Gulf coast.

Together this "massive community effort," rescued 5,000 turtles from dying of cold, or drowning when Gulf of Mexico temperatures dropped below 50°F.

THESE Volunteers Deserve A Share For Their Big Bat Rescue…