After one of the world's most historic bat colonies was evicted from a church on Cape Cod, The Humane Society of the United States and Bat Conservation International (BCI) teamed up with local citizens to erect a new "triple-wide" bat maternity house.
While studying the ancestors of the little brown bat colony in the 1930s and 1940s, researcher Donald R. Griffin discovered that bats use reflected sounds to detect objects. He coined the word "echolocation" to describe this phenomenon.
A world-renowned scientist, Dr. Griffin also championed the idea that animals have the ability to think and reason, raising interest in the scientific community about animal welfare.
Robbie Fearn, director of The HSUS's Cape Wildlife Center, said it was important to make sure this bat colony was not lost forever.
"As suburban sprawl eats into the wild habitats of Cape Cod, natural bat colonies become displaced. These animals will look for homes in our structures, as they once did in this building," he explained. "Providing new houses for these evicted bats provided the dual benefit of helping the bats, but also the human community, through reducing the chances that the evicted bats would seek residence in people's homes, and continuing the ecological benefits that bats provide in the web of life."
Death Sentence Averted
Before animal welfare groups and local residents stepped in, Dr. Griffin's bats faced a fate much worse than homelessness.
According to the Boston Globe, owners of a church in Mashpee, Mass. had planned to exterminate the bat colony to renovate the structure. Local residents, The HSUS, and BCI responded, calling on the owners to consider non-lethal approaches instead, citing as reasons both the welfare of the bats and the colony's historic status.
"Though many people have a fear of bats, when you provide care for injured and orphaned bats, as we do at the Cape Wildlife Center, you come to know them as individuals, to recognize that they are delicate and elegant creatures, worthy of our respect, our compassion and, at times, our aid," said Fearn.
In the end, the church owners decided to remove the bats by using humane exclusion techniques once the young bats were old enough to join their mothers on evening excursions to catch insects. The Boston Globe reported that a wildlife management company installed one-way doors that allowed the animals to leave the church but not reenter.
In total, about 500 bats were evicted.
Homeless No More
The first few days of a little brown bat's life are spent continuously nursing, except when the mother bat leaves the colony to forage. Over the next four weeks, the young learn to fly, and they eventually join their mothers in hunting for insects at night.
A little brown bat maternity colony disperses in summer or fall, and the bats spend the winter in hibernation, waking every couple of weeks. Then, each spring, the bats gather together again to give birth to their young and raise them in the colony.
Dr. Griffin's bats were evicted from the maternity colony just before they would have dispersed on their own. The local conservation commission bought two nursery houses for the bats to use when they return in the spring, and The HSUS and BCI funded a third, much larger house, which weighed about 100 pounds. Town employees erected the houses on telephone poles on town lands, near the original colony site.
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Greg Auger |
"I thought the day the Department of Public Works put up the bat houses was truly amazing," said naturalist Renee Fudala. "It took about 2-1/2 hours to get the (largest) bat house up with the concerted effort of 3 DPW workers. It was a massive undertaking."
To Fudala, the effort was worthwhile: "As my daughter, Ayla, said as she was writing an article for the Quashnet Times (her school newsletter), 'The bats aren't homeless anymore.'"
