D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
April
2008
bats
Page: 3So what can people do to help bats survive? "One of the main things homeowners can do is to create a pond or place of water on their property. That's a big thing in this arid area," Ramsey says. "It needs to be a somewhat open place so the bats can drink on the fly. They don't land at the water's edge to drink; that's not their habit. So for a water source to be attractive to bats, it needs to have enough room around it so they can swoop in, drink and go."
Individuals interested in helping preserve bats can also help out conservation groups, she adds, especially groups concerned with helping to maintain wild habitat, like the WBWG and the NMBWG.
Building and hanging bat houses, something Ramsey says is pushed in city areas, can also provide alternate habitat for threatened bats. Forest service program manager Telles says bat houses not only provide a place for desperate bats to roost, but help to fill that education gap, too.
"It's true that we have a lot of natural habitat for bats," Telles says, noting that many bats roost under the bark of our larger Ponderosa pines. "It's amazing some of the places you'll find them." He puts his hands together and peeks through the tiny sliver of space between them. "I mean, crevices that are just teeny!
"But even with all the trees around, I had bats at my own house, roosting right on the side," he goes on. "So, I put up a bat house. They're great. They're educational, they're fun, and they get people over their misconceptions about bats, too."
Bat Conservation International (www.batcon.org) sells ready-to-hang houses, simple kits and instruction manuals for do-it-yourselfers.
Telles also says there's room for people to help out as volunteers, doing bat surveys, for example. Volunteers are coordinated through the researchers working in the area. Interested parties can contact him, he says, or the local universities — through the biology department at WNMU and the wildlife department at NMSU.
The NMBWG also accepts volunteers and has some opportunities for student employment. Locally, members of the group have worked with New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) on bat awareness and use of wooden bridges by bats. At the suggestion of NMBWG members, bat houses were placed near colonies located under bridges to serve as an alternate roost during renovation or demolition of those bridges.
But maintaining natural habitat when possible is, of course, the best option, Telles says, pointing to the forest service's ecosystem management goals. "We're trying to get fire back on the landscape," he says. "We are trying to mimic what fire would have done naturally in the past." Smaller, intermittent fires would normally clear out brush and smaller trees, he says, leaving healthier big trees, the kind of trees bats need to roost.
"The best thing is to have a healthy, natural habitat," Telles says. "Of course, that's been compromised, so the next best thing is for people to be aware, to be considerate of the bats. To understand them and to help them."
| Bat Basics According to Bat Conservation International (www.batcon.org): Bats are warm-blooded mammals, but such unique ones that scientists have placed them in a group of their own, Chiroptera, which means "hand-wing." All living bat species fit into one of two major groups, the Microchiroptera or the Megachiroptera. Members of the latter group are commonly referred to as "flying foxes" because of their fox-like faces. Bats have fur and their wings are made of stretched skin, not feathers. Fewer than half of one percent of bats have been found to carry rabies. Like humans, bats give birth to completely dependent young and nurse them from a pair of pectoral breasts. In fact, Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, was so impressed by the similarities between bats and primates (lemurs, monkeys, apes and humans) that he originally put them into the same taxonomic group. Today's scientists generally agree that primates and bats share a common shrew-like ancestor, but belong to separate groups. Bats have been around for a very long time. Bat fossils have been found that date back approximately 50 million years, and those ancient bats closely resemble the bats we know today. Many bats must live in large colonies in order to successfully rear young. Yet most species produce only one young per year. These factors combine to make bats exceptionally vulnerable to extinction. |
US Forest Service, 3005 E. Camino del Bosque, Silver City, NM 88061, 388-8201, www2.srs.fs.fed.us/r3/gila. Western Bat Working Group, PO Box 2153, Rapid City, SD 57709, www.wbwg.org New Mexico Bat Working Group, www.geocities.com/nmbwg
Donna Clayton Lawder is senior editor of Desert
Exposure,
which only occasionally makes her batty.