Bats

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Welcome to the Bat House

Hi there and thanks for stopping in. Take a few minutes and learn about the world's only flying mammal.

First a few simple facts about bats. They come in all sizes, from the flying foxes with a wingspan of about 6 feet to the bumblebee bat with a wingspan of about 6 inches. Weights can range from 3.3 pounds to 1/2 ounce. Bats have a life span of from 4 to 30 years depending on the species.

Some people (most people?) think that bats are a major carrier of rabies. While it is true that bats are wild animals and some of them do have rabies, the numbers probably are about the same as for any other wild animal. Some sources say only about one half of one percent of bats have rabies, and that these bats often die quickly and are not overly aggressive.

America's bats are an invaluable natural resource. Most bats eat insects. In fact, having bats living in or near your yard is the best mosquito defense humans could have! I don't know about where you live, but around my neighborhood there are two ponds, a river and a lot of wetlands. Now it's true that mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water, and that doesn't apply to streams and most ponds. But the areas around streams and ponds can contain an awful lot of standing pools and puddles. Mosquito heaven! That must be where we live. Ann can walk to the back of the yard and back and have a dozen or more bites. (No I didn't have bat houses up this year. Yes I will have them up next year.)

If you have bats around you will also benefit from having fewer yard and garden pests and will enjoy learning about bats and sharing your knowledge with friends and neighbors. Few efforts on behalf of wildlife are more fun or more rewarding than helping bats.

North Carolina supports 16 species of bats, including three federally listed as endangered. But bat populations are on the decline in a lot of areas. Increased pesticide use and the loss of roosting and foraging habitat has resulted in the current decline of many bat species. Pesticides cut back the insect population for a time. During the cutback, the bats starve and die. When the insect population rises again there are no bats to eat them, so the insect population can become a bigger problem than it was in the beginning.

By putting up a bat house you can help. In this way you can provide shelter for bats to live and raise their young. The goal is to preserve America's most abundant bats in sufficient numbers to maintain nature's balance. Their loss contributes to growing demands for toxic pesticides that increasingly threaten our personal and environmental health. I believe I would rather have the living breathing bats around than all of those chemicals.

Check out a few of the links below, and the links on those pages. See if you don't agree that we should help the bats out a little by putting up a bat house or two. It's awful cheap insect control! Some of the sites below sell bat houses.

Black and White version of the Bat pages if you want to print it out. Because the page you are viewing now uses white text it will not print.

For information on a bird that eats a lot of insects too check out Chucks Purple Martin Page. Then you can have bug eaters working night and day for you!

To find out why bats are so important to the environment check out these Bat Facts.

Find out how to Build a Bat House with detailed instructions on how to cut out and assemble a two chamber bathouse that measures 21 inches high by 11.25 inches wide by 3.50 inches deep. There is also a set of drawings to help you. There are also pictures showing the pieces and an assembled bat house.

For a source of books related to bats go to the Bat Books pages .

Bat Links with descriptions.

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