A Home for Bats

Image Gallery A mammalogist and head of Bat Conservation International, Merlin Tuttle obviously has a way with bats, in this case a dawn bat (Eonycteris spelaea), a type of flying fox.

Build one in an afternoon.

Ordinarily, this column is devoted to what we used to call "pets," a word nudged into disrepute by animal-rights advocates who consider it patronizing and demeaning to the animals, giving them approximately the status of toys: cute, playful objects that exist solely for our amusement. But the term companion animals does more than elevate dogs, cats, hamsters and other domesticates kept around the house. It also suggests that every animal is a human companion, a fellow traveler, whether it was bred to our specifications or not, whether we feed and pet it or not, and even whether we like it or not. Which brings us to bats, those ace mammalian fliers long maligned and widely regarded with disgust, as though—creatures of twilight and night—they intend us evil.

Fortunately, the myths are starting to evaporate, thanks in great measure to scientists like Merlin Tuttle, of Bat Conservation International (BCI) in Austin, Texas. Bats do not get entangled in human hair, nor are they any more prone to rabies than most other mammals. True, there is a species in Latin America that takes a blood meal from cattle and is called the vampire bat. But, when you think of it, mosquitoes do that to us all the time. We retaliate by spraying the hell out of them, meanwhile suffering the toxic indignity of chemical residue leaching into the environment and eventually into our very own tissues.

The irony in today's lesson is that most North American bats are insectivorous, capable of polishing off hordes of mosquitoes every night. So it makes terrific sense to let them do their thing, even to encourage it, not only by supporting efforts to preserve existing bat roosting sites in your community but by creating new ones—in your own backyard.

You can do this in a couple of ways. You can order a ready-made bat house from BCI and mount it on the side of a house, barn or tree, in which case a portion of the money you spend will go into BCI's conservation work, which is money well-spent. Or you can build a bat box yourself in an afternoon by referring to the illustrations that accompany the bat questions and answers provided by BCI. Either way, if the boxes you mount end up being occupied, the local mosquito population will find itself nicely dented next spring. And you will find yourself feeling a little more hospitable and companionable!