Avant Gardener: Bats are beneficial in the garden and save farmers billions of dollars
By Kyle Valentini
June 20, 2011
290
Summary: You can safely and easily remove a bat from your home. Bats are such beneficial animals there is rarely a need to kill one. One bat can eat 300-400 mosquitoes in a night, not to mention the other pests they eat that allow farmers to save billions of dollars on pesticides and crop losses each year.
Bats are rather creepy and when you discover one in your home first instincts usually lead you to the garage or basement for a tennis racquet. Most of us, at one time or another, have had the unpleasant occurrence of a bat indoors.
Years ago my brother failed to capture a bat seen flying through the foyer. Armed with a sheet and screaming, Die Fledermaus, Die Fledermaus, he had hoped to return it to the outdoors. The bat evidently found its way outside because we never saw it or smelled it again.
I have a strong dislike for flapping wings and perhaps my brother screaming out the title to a Johann Straus II operetta that translates as the bat was his way to add humor to the situation. Although he was unsuccessful at capturing the bat he was successful in keeping me calm and unafraid.
My brother did the right thing in trying to capture the bat. Killing bats is something you might want to reconsider. Bats, despite their creepiness and storied past, are extremely beneficial in the garden and yard.
Ohio is home to about thirteen different species of bats. There are over nine hundred species worldwide and only one of those is the blood sucking variety. The vampire bat is terribly afraid of humans and would much rather drink the blood of horses or cows than the blood of a human.
According to a U.S. Geological Survey study, bats save farmers $3.7-$53 billion a year on pesticides and crop losses. As beneficial as they are in the fields, they are equally beneficial in the yard and garden.
Currently bats are faced with a plague known as white-nose syndrome that has wiped out nearly 70% of the bat population nationwide. The fungal disease attacks bats as they hibernate and causes them to quickly use up stored fat. With no insects available for them to eat in colder months, the bats simply starve to death.
White-nose syndrome was recently detected in Ohio and has also been detected in 16 other states and in Canada. Scientists can find no cause for the fungal disease.
Another obstacle bats face is death by wind turbine. Bats are killed in direct collisions with wind turbines as well as lung damage caused by pressure changes bats experience when flying near moving turbine blades.
If you are faced with a bat indoors keep these things in mind before you kill a beneficial animal that needs your help rather than your back hand. Removing the bat from your home is easier than you might think.
Confine the bat to one room by shutting doors. Stay calm. Dont panic. It is more afraid of you than you could possibly be of it. Sometimes opening a window or door to the outside is all you will need to get the bat outside.
Put on work gloves to protect your hands. Bats might bite if frightened or provoked.
If the bat has landed in a place where you can reach it, carefully place a box, jar or coffee can over it. Slip a piece of cardboard beneath it and take the creature outside for release.
If the bat is higher up gently toss a towel just beneath where the bat is resting. In order for bats to take flight they must drop down. The towel will make the bat drop down where you can scoop it up inside the towel and release it outside.
You can use a net to capture a flying bat but make certain it has very small holes like a butterfly net so the bats wings do not become tangled in it.
If bats continue to gain entry to your home try to determine how they are getting in so that you can foil their attempts. Provide alternative housing in the form of a bat house to discourage them from seeking shelter in your home.
