Twelve years ago, Doppler radar was developed to the point that bat activity can be detected some two miles above the earth. A scan of an area around Austin, Texas, clearly showed a swarm of moths that attracted a horde of bats some 200 million strong, spurring the latter into a feeding frenzy. At the end of the massacre, all traces of activity eerily ceased. The farmer who owned the fields in question was left with a hefty supply of bat guano, much better for his crops – and the environment – than the pesticides he would otherwise have had to use to deter or destroy the moth threat.
This was among the most-jaw dropping tidbits proffered on Aug. 27 at an otherwise routine meeting of the Rotary Club of Sonoma Valley held at the Lodge at Sonoma. Patricia Winters – aka Bat Maam – frequently makes the rounds of civic organizations and other groups to spread the good word on bats. After the Rotary meeting, she was headed to the Boys & Girls Clubs to give a demonstration that would be longer than her information-packed 25-minute session at the Lodge, during which everyone was absolutely rapt.
Ryan Lely/Sonoma Valley Sun
Bat expert Patricia Winters, spoke to Rotary members Wednesday, Aug. 27, about the importance of bats for pollination and insect control.
In addition to the dramatic Doppler readout, Winters brought something warmer, if not fuzzier: three unreleasable (due to injury) bats, including the crowd favorite, a 12-gram Mexican free-tailed named Ruby Tuesday, the beauty of the beasts. She carried them, carefully secured in her safety-gloved hands, around the room so everyone could take a closer look.
Bats are not blind, said Winters, who lives in Forestville. Not only can bats see, but they also communicate with one another. “The sound is louder than a car alarm,” said the Bat Maam, “but not to our ears.”
We think of a walk in the woods as a peaceful experience, she said, unless you take a bat detector along. “Then it sounds like World War III,” she explained. “They are the most social creatures on the planet. They live (in a density of) 200 per square foot. They never shut up. They argue all day long – ‘Hey, your elbow is in my eye!’” So far, some 200 bat words (no doubt including “shut” and “up”) have been identified.
Most bats are monogamous, returning year after year to the same mate, with whom they might have one baby each year. (Hard to believe, when you’ve seen one up close.) Especially astonishing were pictures of a bat that could pull its loosely folded skin up over its head for a curious helmet effect.
Some people feel threatened by bats, but it’s the mosquitoes that should really be worried: Bats, which can cover a 20-square-mile territory, can eat all the mosquitoes in a neighborhood in 20 minutes, which is one reason Winters gives out diagrams to her audiences so they can build bat houses of their own. (Of the 1,177 species of bats identified thus far, only 13 live in Sonoma County.)
As for the threat of rabies, Winters says it’s overstated. Only one person a year dies in the U.S. of rabies. Nonetheless, she advised again and again, if you find a bat: Do not pick it up and certainly don’t touch it with bare hands. (To find a bat rehabilitator near you, go to www.californiabats.com.) Over the years, Witters said, she has been vaccinated so many times that, “I am probably vaccinating people downwind from me.”
No one at Rotary seemed interested in dessert, even before they were informed that most bats eat only insects, with the occasional centipede or scorpion for snack. In fact, there are only three species of vampire bats, of which only one is known to consume mammal blood (which is fatal to the other two species). Most of them are native to the tropical rain forests of South America; none exist either in Transylvania or in the U.S., which may be too bad, since vampire bat saliva has been used to treat stroke victims, with none of the side effects of drugs such as Cumadin.
For more information or to contact Bat Maam, visit www.californiabats.com.
