Frank Bibin speaks fondly of his bats. The part-time farmer and his wife have put up roosting boxes around their organic pecan orchard near Quitman, Ga.
"It's been seven years since we put up a single small roost," Bibin says. "It took two years to get bats, but since then I've put up a box every year, and we have around 3,000 bats now. They've had a large impact on insects in our pecan trees."
The bats doing dips, wingovers and barrel rolls in Bibin's orchard are Mexican free-tails. This variety is common in the Southern and Southwestern U.S., north into Nebraska and Colorado, and eastward to Oregon. In late summer these bats specialize in scooping moths out of thin air.
The 20 million Mexican free-tails in Bracken Cave near San Antonio, Texas, gobble a mammoth 200 tons of insects nightly. That's a pound of moths gone for every 50 bats patrolling the night skies.
"Most of our pecan pests are larval stages of a number of different moths," Bibin says. "That's why we've seen such a difference in problems with hickory shuckworms, webworms, tent caterpillars and armyworms."
On a grander scale, the tons of corn earworm moths gobbled on a Midwest summer's night would boggle the mind. Bat Conservation International, based in Austin, Texas, is on a mission to promote protection and even the housing of bats.
Putting up a bat house isn't a sure ticket to attracting these mammals. However, since 1993 BCI has had its North American bat house research project to boost success. Mark Kiser is in charge.
"It seems there are excellent opportunities everywhere, but in some areas there's no food available-or water, or adequate shelter-so some spots are more difficult," he says. "You don't normally find many bats where there's really heavy pesticide use.
Kiser says boxes built on some older patterns, including smaller European designs, don't work. And then there's the little problem of putting houses in places that turn out to be a bad idea, because guano piles up beneath them or they are too close to people. Bats should not be handled.
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Bat House Details
Bat Conservation International's Web site,
www.batcon.org,
lists facts and research reports, as well as sources for approved
housing and even plans for building a simple bat house.
The group also sells a videotape called "Building Homes for Bats" for
$13 plus shipping and handling and appropriate tax. And for a donation
"in any amount," BCI will send you a copy of the "Bat House Builder's
Handbook." For more information, call 512-327-9721 or visit the Web
site. For catalog orders, call toll free 1-800-538-2287.