Going to bats.

• Author: Hardman, Chris Mackey
• Position: North American Bat Conservation Partnership - Brief Article

Animal Migration can make study and conservation difficult for biologists, especially if the animals cross international borders. Recognizing this challenge, biologists and conservationists from Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. formed the North American Bat Conservation Partnership (NABCP) last June. With their headquarters at Bat Conservation International (BCI)--an Austin, Texas, nonprofit organization--members of NABCP share information, resources, and funding to promote bat conservation through education and research.

According to BCI, bats are among the most threatened and neglected wildlife, with more than half of American bat species listed as vulnerable or endangered. Habitat loss poses the greatest threat to bat populations. Every day critical roosting sites vanish as developers seal up caves, construction crews destroy cliff-face crevices, and loggers cut down old-growth forests. Increasingly, human visits to bat caves negatively affect bat populations. During hibernation or nursing, bats are especially sensitive to intruders. A disturbance can cause a hibernating bat to use up precious energy needed to survive the winter or can cause a nursing bat to abandon its roost. Occasionally, human visitors purposely devastate bat colonies by burning or burying them. Throughout history bats have been the victims of ignorance and myths.

"There's a lot of senseless destruction where people fear bats and they think that they're doing a public service by eradicating bats," explains NABCP assistant director Jim Kennedy. "That is where the education component is really important." By working with land managers, teachers, and animal control and public health officials, NABCP participants are producing pamphlets, posters, and teacher's aids to educate the public about the importance of bats. Many people are unaware that insectivorous bats provide an effective, pesticide-free form of insect control. For example, bats from Indiana and Texas consume millions of pounds of some of America's most costly crop pests by catching and eating migrating insects traveling north from Mexico. "We have many histories of farmers who have been spraying pesticides and [once] they attract a colony of bats, they completely reduce or stop their spraying altogether," Kennedy says.

In Mexico...