Bat House Warnings – A Reality Check
Observations of heat-stressed, sometimes dead bats associated with bat houses, have led to unfortunate speculation that bat houses can become ecological traps that lure bats to their death. It is true that numerous bat houses are badly built and sold with unreasonable claims and little, if any, instruction on bat needs. Vendors of such houses […]
Wind Energy Resources
Millions of bats are needlessly killed annually in the United States alone by careless operation of wind power facilities. Wind power production poses a critical and rapidly growing threat to bats, especially in industrialized countries. The impact of exponential growth remains largely unmeasured and unreported, but available evidence is alarming. Wind production companies, widely viewed […]
Saving Bats One Cave and Mine at a Time
Caves are a critical resource for America’s bats. But thousands are no longer available for bats. Early American settlers relied on saltpeter from bat caves to produce gun powder. Then caves became lucrative for tourism, and many others were buried beneath cities or flooded by reservoirs. Even caves that were not destroyed often were rendered […]
Comments on World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Report
The World Health Organization’s recent report on COVID-19 speculates a bat origin. However, its findings are seriously flawed and questioned by the Biden administration according to the Wall Street Journal. Former CDC Director, Robert Redfield, in his CNN interview, still believes it escaped from a lab in China. The origin clearly remains unresolved. A review […]
Review of COVID-19 Impacts on Bat Research and Conservation
Throughout the history of bat conservation disease scare campaigns have been a dominant impediment to progress. Misrepresented warnings of scary diseases, such as SARS, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), MERS, and Ebola threaten to reverse decades of conservation progress. To date there is no evidence of transmission of any of these diseases from a bat to a human. […]
Ebola Discovery That May Help Bats
Early evidence pointed to great apes1 and humans2 as possible sources of Ebola, but they were assumed to be too susceptible to serve as reservoirs. Bats were widely speculated to be the source, though the preponderance of evidence pointed elsewhere3. By the time of the current outbreak in Guinea, it had long been assumed that bats were […]
Severe Weather Takes Heavy Toll in Texas
Given overall warming trends, we weren’t surprised to see some 70 to 80° F days in January and February of 2021. But that hardly tells the full story! Beginning on February 10th, historically low temperatures were recorded across Texas. For eight consecutive days (February 10–18), the temperature hovered between 37° and 9° F with six […]
Bat Flash! Help John Oliver Put Bats in Perspective
The Last Week Tonight with John Oliver February 15th episode shared misguided speculations about bats. Here is Merlin’s public letter to John Oliver. We don’t have his email address, so we’re counting on you to help get his attention. No shade, John, we understand the topic is muddy. We simply want the opportunity to set the record […]
USA Today Bat Flash Follow-up
Many thanks to all who responded to last week’s Bat Flash. We were copied on emails and are delighted to see your politely and positively framed responses. MTBC’s objective is to encourage the authors, editors and decision makers to refocus attention to balanced reporting of scientifically sound facts. We offer our resources and, with the help of […]
Bat Flash! Where Did COVID-19 Really Come From?
USA Today’s January 17 story, Where did Covid-19 come from? leads with the following statement “The coronavirus that conquered the world came from a thumb-sized bat tucked inside a remote Chinese cave. Of this much, scientists are convinced.” Deep in the story, they quote virologist John Connor at Boston University, saying ‘It looks like it’s […]