Advice for Young People Interested in Science and Conservation
Imagine what life would be like if you could find a job that was as much fun as the things you dream about doing on vacation. Not just having fun, but also doing things that would make you proud. Believe it or not that is possible!
Bats in Buildings
There are two kinds of problems associated with bats in buildings. The sudden appearance of a lost individual in one’s home or office versus a colony of bats in a wall or attic that causes no immediate problem, but may eventually grow to cause a nuisance, normally limited to odor or noise.
Bats and Mosquito Control
Bats are primary predators of the vast numbers of insects that fly at night, and some species consume large numbers of mosquitoes when they are available. However, mosquito control is a complex problem that rarely can be solved by a single approach, be it bat houses or pesticides.
Essential Bat Values
Insect-eating bats save farmers approximately $23 billion in annual agricultural losses in the United States alone. Millions of free-tailed bats from Bracken Cave, Texas eat more than 100 tons of insects nightly, intercepting billions of migrant pests before they can lay eggs, a huge savings to farmers.
Exaggerated Disease Warnings
Merlin’s Opinion Letter, “Fear of Bats and its Consequences,” was published in the Journal of Bat Research and Conservation. This is a thoroughly documented report on how exaggerated disease claims against bats have harmed bats and efforts to conserve them over the past 47 years—something all who care about bats should know.
Fear of Bats and its Consequences
Merlin’s Opinion Letter, “Fear of Bats and its Consequences,” was published in the Journal of Bat Research and Conservation. This is a thoroughly documented report on how exaggerated disease claims against bats have harmed bats and efforts to conserve them over the past 47 years—something all who care about bats should know.
Finding, Protecting, and Restoring America’s Historic Bat Caves
The largest losses of cave-dwelling bats often occur prior to a cave’s discovery by cavers or bat biologists. When looking for bat roosts we simply ask about caves where bats currently live. And too often, those we discover are locations of last resort for bats that have been forced to abandon preferred sites. This presents major problems. The bats we see may be barely surviving in marginal conditions, misunderstood to be good or even ideal. Failure to recognize true needs can lead to disastrous conservation decisions.
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How Disturbance Harms Hibernating Bats
At a time when WNS is forcing increased arousals and high mortality due to premature exhaustion of limited fat reserves, every possible precaution must be taken to minimize disturbance and restore the best possible hibernation conditions.
How I Photograph Bats
“I learned to photograph bats as an act of desperation. If efforts to conserve bats were to succeed, people needed to see them as they naturally are–gentle, inquisitive, even beautiful.” -Merlin Tuttle Pictured is Merlin preparing to photograph newly tamed spectral bat (Vampyrum spectrum). This gentle and intelligent carnivorous species is one of Merlin’s favorites.
How to Deal with Bat Parasites
Colonial bats can harbor ectoparasites, from bat flies to mites, fleas, and even bed bugs. The good news is that most bat parasites are highly host-specific. Unless they’re starving, they much prefer to remain with their bat hosts. It may also be reassuring to know that disease transmission from bat parasites to humans is exceedingly rare, if it occurs at all. In fact, in a lifetime of studying bats, I’ve never heard of it.
How To Restore WNS-Depleted Bat Populations
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is caused by a fungus (Pseudogymnoascus destructans). It has spread rapidly across North America since it apparently arrived from Europe in 2006, and it has killed millions of bats. However, because infected bats can quickly travel long distances, even the best efforts of wildlife managers, biologists, and cavers have failed to prevent its spread from coast to coast.
Issues Publication in Defense of Bats
Read Merlin’s article, Give Bats a Break, in the Spring 2017 edition of Issues in Science and Technology. This report is based on Merlin’s review of thousands of scientific papers and popular media stories. And it is the first to expose how sensational speculation is fostering bad science in a self-perpetuating cycle of misdirected public health funding that threatens the future of bats. This is an issue that we cannot ignore.
Pesticide Addiction: How Bats Can Help
Following World War II, many farmers suddenly turned to DDT, the first modern pesticide.
Rabies in Perspective
Millions of tourists have watched free-tailed bat emergences from the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas over the past 35 years without anyone ever having been harmed. Signs warn visitors not to handle the bats.
White-Nose Syndrome
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is caused by a fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (formerly known as Geomyces destructans). It was first recorded from a photo taken in a cave in Schoharie County, New York in 2006.
Wind Energy Neglecting Bats
The cumulative impact of wind power facilities in killing migratory bats threatens to become an environmental crisis that cannot be ignored. By 2012, more than 600,000 bats were being killed annually, and the number grows each year (Hayes 2013).
Wind Energy: Key Planning Issues
Pre-siting Environmental Impact Studies: These are typically under-funded, inadequate to evaluate true wildlife risks, and often do not include objective, scientific peer review, either of methodology or results. Most are too short in duration and fail to consider the potential for turbines to attract bats in numbers not present during pre-siting monitoring.
