GOING TO BAT FOR BATS

Audubon Magazine, December 2003

 The boxed bat guano – collected, sanitized and given away each week -- is a gift from Ann-Francis Ford.  “Best fertilizer around,” she declares.  Ford snaps down her bicycle kickstand then starts working the crowd.  Never one to miss an educational moment, this grandmother, naturalist and Florida Keys Audubon Society member passes out flyers about the velvety free-tailed bat (Molossus molossus), the species that people gather here every evening to see swarm.       

The curious bat watchers aren’t standing outside a cave but a school maintenance building in Monroe County, Florida.  The only colony of velvety free-tailed bats known to roost in a US city is in one of the school’s hollow block walls.  In most places, bats are about as popular as prisons and nuclear power plants, and, despite their rarity, these bats are no exception:  Few people want them in their backyards, including at first the Monroe County School Board.  However, the bats are protected by Florida state law and cannot be exterminated.  Last year Ford and other members of the Florida Keys Audubon rallied around the bats to enlighten the community and make sure the animals weren’t evicted.

The colony is located just a block away from an elementary school – too close for the comfort of many school board members, but just about right, according to the kids.  Cyndi Marks of the Florida Bat Center traveled 300 miles at Audubon’s request to teach the students all about the nocturnal creatures; a wave of save-the-bats letters soon reached the school superintendent.   “There’s no health risk if people know to avoid injured animals,” says Dr. Mark Whiteside, a physician and president of Florida Keys Audubon.  “I’ve spoken with fish and wildlife officials, with our state veterinarian and an entomologist. We all agree they’re roosting in the best possible place.”

An unusually large number of albino bats – five in a colony of 1,200 (albinism in mammals usually occurs at a rate of just one in a million) – has further dispelled old concerns.  The unusual phenomenon “shifts the mind-set about bats from vampires to good guys,” says Tom Andrews, a Florida Keys Audubon member.  The school board has agreed to grant the bats asylum, he says.  “And that’s as impressive as seeing one of the albinos themselves.”

By Barbara Bowers, © 2003