Who said bats belonged with Halloween?

Halloween is starting to become a significant visual holiday around town. Growing up, Halloween was an opportunity to get dressed up, go visit the neighbors, tell jokes and be grateful for the apples or the freshly-made peanut butter popcorn that came your way. People left their lights on for you then as they do now.

Some of that is still happening today, but along with it you can see orange lights lining the edges of houses, a human-sized Scooby Do in the yard to greet you and large bats swooping down from corners of porches. Bats, however, are one of those creatures we, especially those who visit the North Woods, should be very thankful for.

This past summer, Greg Thiessen did some research about bats.  Keep reading to find out more about bats and how they are helpful. Maybe next Halloween you will be inspired to put up a bat house!

Ecological Value

Most bats eat only insects, while others eat fruit. A single bat can eat up to 600 mosquitoes in an hour. The 20 million free-tailed bats from Bracken Cave in Central Texas, eat a quarter of a million pounds of insects in a single night. So from that aspect, the bat can easily be called the protector of human sanity. Bats are also very important flower pollinators. Throughout the tropics the seed dispersal and pollination activities of bats are vital to the survival of rain forests. Many varieties of the world’s most economical plants also rely on the bats for pollination, such as bananas, breadfruit, avocados, dates, figs, peaches, and mangoes. Studies of bats has helped contribute to the development of navigational aids for the blind, vaccine production, and drug testing, as well as a better understanding of low-temperature surgical procedures.

 

Origins

Bats have been around for approximately 50 million years.  In contrast, science dates the “arrival” of the human species at 200,000 years ago.  Like humans, bats give birth to poorly developed young and nurse them with milk. The bat is very unique in that it is the only mammal that can truly fly. It’s “wings” are really just a thin skin membrane connected between its four fingers. The thumb hangs free. There about 1,100 different bat species worldwide, with seven species inhabiting the canoe country. The majority of species inhabit the tropical forests.  Of all mammal species, bats make up a quarter of them.

 

Navigation

Bats communicate and navigate by echolocation. This means that bats emit a high-frequency sound that travels out around them. When the sound wave hits an object, or insect, it will bounce back to the bat telling them about their surroundings. Their unique echolocation system is estimated to be literally billions of times more efficient than any similar system developed by humans.

 

Misconceptions

1.     Bats are not blind. Some even have excellent vision, so you don’t have to fear them becoming entangled in your hair.

2.   Many also mistake bats as disease infested rabies carriers. While bats can contract rabies, this misconception seems to stem from the fact that they can survive longer without showing symptoms. Many people became entrenched in the belief that large bat populations are rabies and disease reservoirs, ready to infect us all. In actuality, less than half of 1 percent of bats contract rabies and those that do seldom become aggressive.

3.   The other disease that humans can contract from bats, histoplasmosis, is rare. It is caused by a fungus that prefers soil enriched by bird or bat droppings. Human infection occurs from breathing dust containing contaminated spores. In wide areas of the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the Far East up to 80 percent of the human population has been exposed.

4.    The last possible danger, parasites, carried by bats has been exceedingly exaggerated. Bat parasites are highly specific, so once separated from their host they soon die.

Boundary Water Species

 

	Little Brown Bat	Big Brown Bat	Northern Myotis	Silver-Haired Bat	Red Bat	Hoary Bat
Wingspan & Flight Characteristics	8-10 inches low zig-zag flight	12-14 inches strong, steady flight	10-12 inches	10-12 ½ inches slow and low	11-13 inches long pointy wings	14-16 inches long narrow wings
Color	uniformly glossy brown	uniformly glossy brown	dark dull brown	long pelage, frosted with silvery white	bright reddish/ orange to chestnut	brown with silver tips
Favorite Food	moths, beetles, mosquitoes	true bugs and beetles	variety of insects	insects hatching from streams	moths, beetles, and flies	moths, also beetles, bugs, and flies
Hunting Times	late dusk	active all night	dusk and dawn	early in evening	early in evening	active all night
Hunting Pattern	usually over water	over water and wooded clearings	over trees and ponds	zig-zag flight over streams	near streams and woodlots	wooded areas
Daytime Roost	caves, buildings, hollow trees	caves, buildings, hollow trees	caves, buildings, hollow trees	roosts singly in hollow trees	roosts in trees, hangs by one foot	roosts singly in tall woody vegetation
Solitary/ Communal	maternity colonies of several thousand	maternity colonies	maternity colonies up to 30	solitary	solitary	solitary, except in migration
Migrate/ Hibernate	hibernates	hibernates	hibernates	migrates	migrates	migrates
Winter Home	caves and mines	buildings/ caves just above 0°C	migrates south to hibernate in small groups	far south as NE Mexico	moves south in loose groups	Mexico, sexes migrate separately
Number of Young	1 (rarely 2)	2 born June/early July	1 young	2 born June/early July	1-5, usually 3-4	2 young in May/ early July

The Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox is the largest bat in the world with a wingspan of up to 5 ft. Don’t worry, it lives in the Philippines.

Wilderness Wind Bat Boxes

We have several bat boxes located around camp. They can be found on the eastern walls of The Rookery and Garage. Per bat preferences, they face east to catch the morning sun and are located 10-15 feet off the ground. To help them roost, the inside surfaces must be rough or horizontally grained to help them hang on upside down. The lumber must also be untreated, since some wood is impregnated with wood preservatives and insecticides. Bats are very sensitive to pesticides and can easily be harmed by them. Lastly, the bat house must be well sealed to prevent air and heat loss, which may result in an unsuitable home for them.

 

The WW board isn’t bored

From left to right: Melissa Falb, Marshall King, Donna Minter, Beth Landis, Ed Kauffman, Brenda Sawatsky Paetkau, Glenn Gilbert, Steve Mullet. Missing: Rachel Geissinger Hoskins, John Daniels, Paula Northwood

The Wilderness Wind board gathered at Pine Ridge, the main camp, for its fall board meeting this past weekend. We traveled from Ohio, Idaho, Indiana, South Dakota and other parts of Minnesota. Kathy Landis traveled from Kansas for the meeting, as well.

This group of passionate people reviewed the past year, with its successes and challenges. Trip numbers were down this past year, we believe largely due to the economy. A number of outfitters in Ely had fewer trips this summer. But we celebrate and are grateful for:

• the amazing staff we had (and have in our executive director)
• new programs, including the Quilters’ and Writers’ retreats
• the success of the Paddle-A-Thon
• The volunteers who contributed to our camp and our mission
• and a new partnership with Big City Mountaineers, which uses Wilderness Wind as a base camp to take inner city youth into the Boundary Waters.

We knew that this would be a challenging budget year. Kathy and the board worked together to build a budget that was frugal and responsible. And we’re hopeful that about $13,000 in year-end donations will cover our budget and let us finish in the black. That’s a real possibility and one we’re optimistic will happen.

The board discussed the 2010 year and how best to fulfill our mission. We want people to experience the wilderness and the work God has done and can do in it. We want people to go on trips and stay at Lakeside. We want those who have experienced it before to bring those who haven’t.

We enjoyed each others’ company and the time at base camp. We enjoyed the food that Liz Rempel, this summer’s cook, prepared and left in the freezer. I won’t say we enjoyed the inch or two of snow that fell over the weekend, but it was interesting to see camp under a white blanket.

Two final notes: Ed Kauffman finished six years as president of the board. He has given significant time and energy to lead this group and we’re grateful.

If you live in the vicinity of Goshen, Ind., mark your calendars for March 27. We’re hoping to have a potluck that night to eat together and celebrate that spot we cherish in northern Minnesota.

- Marshall King, board president