Bats beneficial to regional ranchers

The sun sinks behind the western horizon, an orange glow lingers behind the florescent lights of an oil station northwest of Carlsbad. The faint whirr of oil pumps and chirp of crickets are all that can be detected by the human ear — but on other frequencies, it is not so quiet. Sporting brown waders, a blue flannel shirt, and a headlamp, Dan Taylor, a biologist with Bat Conservation International, slips into a murky pond armed with long metal poles wrapped in netting, which he stretches across the water. Called a "mist net," it is the size of a volleyball net with mesh so fine it looks like smoke. Taylor is attempting to capture bats as they swoop down to the pond for a drink of water. A small yellow device with a red light is switched on. Called a bat detector, it picks up the sonic pulses used by bats for echolocation and translates them into clicking noises audible to the human ear. The Western Mastiff can have a wingspan of two feet, and eats larger insects such as beetles, he said. Mexican Free-tailed bats are common to the area and known for their large colony size. A colony of 1 million lives in the Carlsbad Caverns. Each Mexican Free-tailed bat can eat close to its own bodyweight in insects a night, Taylor said, many of which are considered pests to farmers. This means the Carlsbad Caverns colony alone could eat 32,250 pounds of insects a night. Bats are also responsible for pollinating many plants around the globe Taylor said. Many tropical fruits and the agave plant, which is used for tequila, are primarily pollinated by bats. Farmers and orchard growers, such as pecan growers, are turning to bats as a natural source of pest control with quite a bit of success, he said...read more