Bat House Forum

[Dave Miller]

Interesting story from TNC about Rafinesque’s big-eared bats using an abandoned mobile home in Florida:


http://www.nature.org/wherewework/north ... 29719.html

[Joe Spencer]

Very interesting thanks DAve...

[BrackishBatter]

Loss of habitat – swamp forest – is the main contributor to the bat’s decline, but the species is also highly sensitive to disturbance. At The Disney Wilderness Preserve, airboats are a constant concern. Folk and Seckbach Finn studied the impact of airboats on this colony by attaching small radio telemetry transmitters to bats and tracking their movements.

The studies showed bats were spooked by airboats along Reedy Creek, and were forced to forage miles away from their roost. This puts them at greater risk of predation and physical stress. Florida’s recent three-year drought has lowered the creek, preventing airboats from making their way to the bats’ foraging lands. But with wetter weather this year, the boats are likely to return. A scary thought!

Returning to our trusty ATV, the team heads back to civilization. We did not scream.

As a hunter and outdoorsman down here in south Louisiana, I am an avid conservationist in the old-school sense.

THis is a great story, but it irks me that the angle of these so called news pieces always has to be about the unnatural and evil intrusion of man. Yet the "researchers" are somehow above reproach, despite their invasion of the bat's home, attaching transmitters to the bats, and riding noisy ATVs that somehow don't spook the delicate sensitive bats like the awful air boats do.

If there are only 15 bats, leaving them alone would seem the best.

End rant.

GoOOO BATS!!