Bat Habitat Loss

Bats are losing their habitats. Even the ones that live in forests are losing their habitats because we are replacing the old growth forests with new ones. You might not think this is a problem but it is because the bats already know how to survive in the old forests but it can be hard for them to learn to survive in the new forests. And people make farms and cities and things where the forests were and plant new forest in other places. People are also blocking abandoned mines, which keeps the bats from getting in and out of the mines, which are sometimes their homes. People block the mines so nobody gets hurt. However, with mines you can put up gates that bats can get through but people cannot but these are rarely used.

 The bat's food's habitat is also getting destroyed which means the bats cannot eat. Most bats eat insects such as beetles, moths and mosquitoes. But the insects they eat will not live without their homes so destroying the insects homes hurts the bats.

Some organizations such as Bat Conservation International (BCI) are trying to help bats with their problems.  They do this by building bat houses with kids and selling bat houses so everyone can have one. A bat house is a wooden structure made for bats to roost in. Another organization trying to help bats is the Organization for Bat Conservation who's directer, Rob Mies, helped bat by going to the Museum of Natural History and giving a talk about bats and how they help us. This helps to raise awareness about bats problems and show people that bats are good, helpful creatures. There is also a group of biologists who are turning and abandoned military bunker in Maine into a bat house. This is useful because then something that is not being used by people helps bats.

You can help bats by putting up bat houses, building bat gardens and telling your friends and family that bat are good and need help with habitat loss problems. A bat garden is a garden in which you should plant night flowers and scented plants and a pond for the bats to drink out of. You should also plant flower that attract bats and their prey such as Agave, which will attract some species of bats.

( Brown/common long eared bats. Photo from http://home.kpn.nl/korst105/bhforum/longearedbats1.jpg.

(Bat house photo. Image from http://www.batguys.com/resources/images/sbinsfull.JPG.)


Sources: http://www.defenders.org/bats/threats

https://www.aza.org/uploadedFiles/Education/Resources_for_Educators/Thematic_Educational_Activities/Threats%20to%20Bats.pdf

http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/encouraging_bats.html

Post by Liel

Bat Houses Work!!!

Bats are our friends! Will you offer them a home near your home?

Bats In Texas

I just read about the bats living in Texas. I read about them in the Texas Park And Wilds magazine. There were two good videos and good descriptions of several species of Texan bats.

 I learned that pallid bats wings' beat 10 beats per second, pallid bats also roost in colonies of less than twenty bats and Rafinesque's big-eared bats will roost in man-made towers.

There are six main viewing spots in Texas for Mexican Free-tailed Bats. They are: Bracken Cave, Stuart Bat Cave, Devils Sinkhole SNA, Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve, Old Tunnel WMA and Congress Avenue Bridge.

There are around ten million to fifteen million Mexican free-tailed bats living under Congress Avenue Bridge. Mexican free-tailed bats save farmers millions of dollars by eating insects. Mexican free-tailed bats consume the worst pests of several crops including cotton and pecans.

I have been to the Congress Avenue Bridge to see the bats. I liked going there. I have always liked bats and wanted to see them up close. When I went to Congress Avenue Bridge mostly I sat on the grass and watched but I did go up on to the bridge. There was a good view from the ground and the bridge.

Source:
  http://tpwmagazine.com/digital/2015/jan/html5/

Misunderstood Bats

Bats are misunderstood. People often think the they are ugly, will get caught in your hair and drink blood and have rabies a lot. Most of this is not true. Vampire bats do drink blood though they only drink livestock blood and do not hurt the animals.The bats only make a tiny bite and drink a tiny bit of blood before leaving. When the animals wake up they are not even itchy from were the bat bit them. A vampire bat is the only type of bat that drinks blood. A bat is just as likely to have rabies as any other animal. People tested to see how many bats do have rabies and only 10 percent of the tested bats had rabies. Any one bat is less likely to have rabies then a skunk or raccoon. Bats will not get caught in your hair. They can see fine in the dark especially with echolocation. And they are very shy of people. Bats are very cute. People probably think they are ugly because they think other bad things about bats and have never seen one up close. But if you look at a bat up close it is actually very cute.

In fact bats actually help us. they help us by pollinating plants, eating insects and spreading seeds. Actually we need bats. There would be to many bugs and some plants such as mangoes, bananas and guavas would not be pollinated if we did not have bats.

 Here are some pictures of cute bats. Daubenton's Bat (picture from static.guim.co.uk):

Flying Fox (picture from Cute Bats tumblr):

How it Started

Florida Bonnetted Bat courtesy US FWS

In March of 2014 it dawned on me that:

1.     I was uncomfortable about certain conditions in the world,
2.     My 8 year-old granddaughter Liel also had concerns about certain conditions in the world,
3.     Maybe we could work together on a project of her choosing to make something better in this world.

I live in Ojai, CA. Liel lives in Valley Cottage, NY.

In late March I called, and asked Liel if she would like to work on a project with me. Got to admit, I expected a yes and I expected, given her life’s interest, that she would opt for improving conditions for bats throughout the world.

Right. She immediately said, "yes!" However, instead of an immediate answer about what to work on, she said she would give that some thought. A few days later she told me that she would like to work on caring for bats!

It was a GO!