Learning to Love Bats

Now that bat maternity season has wound down for the little mammalian mothers with wings, the mosquito population is winding up to take over the world.

As it tries to do every year, it seems.

But along with expensive mosquito control districts, fortunately, the Sunshine State harbors 13 species of what might be man’s best friend, or at least the second best: bats, all of them hungry insectivores in a state now home to 80 of the world’s 3,600 species of mosquito.

That family of small flies is widely responsible for misery among humans.

Bats, on the other hand, are not only not responsible for misery among humans, but they remain indispensable friends wherever humans exist because they’ll suck in mosquitoes and other insects like a vacuum sucks up dust.

To start with.

Some bats are good pollinators and soil enhancers, depending on whether they’re feeding on the fruit of some plants or expelling it in nutrient-rich waste.

Unfortunately, the friendship favor bats offer has not been widely returned. Humans are not necessarily bat friends (although some are described as bat crazy), either because of oblivious urban or suburban development that fails to protect the environments some bats require (but they can also live in cities if there are appropriate trees and food), or because of misguided information and perhaps fear.

A Southeastern Myotis bat

Bats are nothing to be afraid of, say the experts. Instead, they should be encouraged and supported.

“They’re our wild neighbors, they’re part of our communities, some keep insect populations in check” — and that right there is enough, says Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, a national nonprofit based in St. Petersburg.

But bats are beautiful and extraordinarily talented, both as mothers raising pups and as fliers. After pregnancies lasting from about two to seven months, a bat can give birth to one or sometimes two pups at a time — one species can have litters of as many as four. After their birth, mothers nurse and care closely for the young.

When they fly, there’s magic in the air — in this case, a seeming magic called echolocation, says Bennett.

“Bats are not blind,” announced the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. But they don’t see well, except by echo-communication.

“They send out a sound that bounces off objects and comes back so they can sense exactly what’s in front of them, even distinguishing between different (sometimes very small) objects,” Bennett explains.

Bats are so effective at aerial maneuvers that a single colony of the Florida Bonneted bat, one of the rarest in the world and the largest in the state, can consume as many as 21 pounds of insects in a night. They favor mosquitoes, other fly species and beetles.

Depending on species and food with shelter, colonies can range from a few dozen to many hundreds.

All of Florida’s bats, including this Seminole bat, are protected and untouchable during their maternity season between April 15 and August 15. FLORIDA FISH AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION COMMISSION / COURTESY PHOTOS

All of Florida’s bats are protected, and a state law even prohibits homeowners or anyone who encounters a bat colony on their private property from moving or disturbing bats during their maternity seasons. The official dates in Florida span the period between April 15 and Aug. 15 when females give birth to their pups.

Still, the Florida bonneted bats are critically endangered. So, they’re protected all the time from human intervention.

As the only bat endemic to Florida — seen in both the southwest and southeast parts of the state and nowhere else on the planet — they have at least one environmental trait that has put them at even greater risk than other species: they nest in pine trees, but only certain trees located near saltwater.

Rising sea levels represent an acute danger to bats because their favorite nesting sites tend to be near the waterline in trees whose roots can’t tolerate salt.

People are stepping in to help bats and appreciating them, says Bennett, who uses a bat app on her phone to identify their sounds. These sounds are often too high in frequency for the human ear to perceive — but not in the case of the Florida bonneted bat.

Bats take off at dusk. Every night, they can consume hundreds of insects, including mosquitoes, ants, moths and grasshoppers.

Bennett described one rescue near the Miami zoo when somebody wanted to turn the parking lot into a water park, but a majority of community members put a stop to that notion because of the bats.

The largest population of bonneted bats in Florida is the pine rocklands forest in Miami-Dade County, one of the most endangered forests globally.

“These critically endangered bats live there,” Bennett said. “It’s so built up now; they don’t have enough space, so at night, they use the dark parking lot of Zoo Miami.”

Why a parking lot?

“It attracts insects, perhaps because of the heat rising off it, and the bats flock to it like it’s a bat restaurant,” Bennett said.

Count one for the good guys — the bat boys and bat girls.

ABOVE: Florida bonneted bats are critically endangered and protected from any human intervention.

Maxx Chadwick, the animal care director at the Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium in Fort Myers, said they do not have any mammals as the center doesn’t have the habitats or the funds needed to build them.

“But we absolutely would love to get some in the future,” Chadwick said. “What we do have though throughout the property are bat boxes. Bat boxes are essentially like birdhouses but for bats. They provide local bats with a place to live, roost and raise young. This is a winwin because it helps ensure we have bats around our property to do what bats do best”

Chadwick believes the bats that occupy the homes on the Nature Center’s property are Brazilian free-tailed bats and evening bats, and are fortunately all insectivores.

“This is where the importance of bats can really come into play for us,” he said. “Bats can eat hundreds of insects every single night. That amount certainly adds up in weight. They are excellent at hunting bugs such as mosquitoes, ants, moths, grasshoppers and more.

ABOVE: Researchers can check the age of a bat by inspecting the wings. FLORIDA FISH AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION COMMISSION / COURTESY PHOTOS

“There are lots of common myths about bats – they drink blood, they are just rats with wings, they are all blind, they will get caught in your hair, they all carry rabies, etc.” Chadwick continued. “Bats are actually rather harmless to us (but very beneficial). Now, they can actually carry rabies like many other animals in the wild are able, but that doesn’t mean that each bat does. And if they do, you are very unlikely even to know it because we don’t really encounter bats often. If you encounter a bat showing signs of rabies, use common sense as you would with any other animal showing signs, keep your distance, and do not interact with them to prevent the possibility of infection.”

What can be done to help bats? Plant native species in your yards. Planting native plants encourages native biodiversity. This can bring in the insects that bats will eat. Bats also may find nice places to roost in any native trees you have in your yard.

“We can also be wary of using pesticides,” Chadwick said. “Similar to how birds of prey can get sick and die from eating small mammals that have consumed rat poison, bats can get sick and die from eating insects contaminated with pesticides.”

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