What are the benefits of saving bats?

Question

I'm fascinated by bats. I love to watch them fly around, although I've never seen more than a few at a time where I live in a suburban area in Massachusetts, Northeastern Unites States.

I'd love to see them in large numbers in their natural habitat, and it seems that Texas is a good choice for that. Texas has a few areas of established bat colonies, the most notable species of which is the Mexican Free-tailed bats. Apparently at certain times of the year there are more than a million of these bats living in a specific region of Texas at the same time. Tourism is high when there's a possibility of seeing them.

In August of 2017, Hurricane Harvey, did almost unprecedented damage to Texas and neighboring states.

Many local conservation groups, scientists and concerned citizens worked hard for months to salvage as much of the habitat and as many bats as possible. I was told that large conservation organizations from all over the world joined with them. Why would they do that? Devoting so many human and financial resources seems like a lot unless bats are important for reasons other than tourism.

What's so important about bats that conservationists from all over the world want to save them?

Answer 1

Bats eat hundreds of mosquitos per bat every night, which is amazing for human peoples and the principle reason people hang up special made bat houses. Bat guano (poop) also creates habitats for other species. There are entire ecosystems in caves that exist only because of bats. In those ecosystems bats are the only creatures leaving the deep dark regions of the caves and returning each day. When they're out at night they fill their bellies, and when they're hanging out during the day they're dropping their guano to the ground where many creepy crawlies pick through it, sustaining thriving populations. If the bats die off, then that supply chain is severed, and there's a chance that the entire cave will die, because suddenly nothing is replenishing the food supply.

Answer 2

You could ask what the importance is of any species or related group of animals. They all have their place in the ecosystem, and there will be consequences when any of them disappear.

In the particular case of bats, they are quite beneficial to humans. They eat a good fraction of their body weight in flying insects every night. They are also the only pollinators for some plants.

Bats have been in decline recently due to a fungus. This fungus has decimated bats in much of North America. Hurricanes have occasionally hit parts of Texas for thousands of years, and bat colonies must have been damaged as a result before. Certainly the bats would eventually rebound, as has doubtlessly happened many times in the past.

Perhaps people felt that the hurricane damage together with the fungus was a tougher hurdle for the bats to recover from. The fact that these colonies have become somewhat known almost certainly helped people decide to go out of their way to help the bats.

The decline due to the fungus is quite dramatic and real. Until about the late 1990s, we used to see bats regularly flying around our house in the evening here in north-central Massachusetts. We even put out some bat boxes to give them more nesting options. Unfortunately, bats have become a rare sight lately. Now most evenings in the summer I can look at the sky for five minutes or more and not see a single bat.

Answer 3

They're part of the ecosystem. If they go away, it creates an imbalance that can't be fixed. Simple example, they eat huge numbers of mosquitoes. Kill the bats, and you free the mosquitoes to multiply as they please.

Answer 4

To add to the excellent answers already posted:

• Bats act as prey for larger birds like hawks, falcons, snakes et al.
• Bats (the larger ones known as flying foxes) help in seed dispersal as they eat fruits.

Answer 5

Biggest reason for people: pest control

• One bat can eat between 600 to 1,000+ mosquitoes and other flying pests per hour!
• Loss of bats to WNS alone results in > 5 million lbs. of insects going uneaten!
• Bats provide upwards of $50 billion annually in pest control services!

Bats are also a vital part of the environment!

Bats provide a vital nutritional link between a cave ecosystem and the environment outside; often the base of the food chain. Bat guano supplies the only food source for cave-dwelling micro-organisms and invertebrates, which become a food source for fish, salamanders and other large animals.

Not to mention the ecosystem impact of eating all those insects!!

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Sources:

• Michigan DNR

• National Park service