THE
ECOLOGICAL, ECONOMIC & SCIENTIFIC VALUE OF BATS
Worldwide, bats are the
major predators of night-flying insects, including mosquitoes and many
crop pests. An individual Mouse-eared Bat from North America can
catch up to 600 mosquitoes in an hour! Closer to home, it has been
estimated that the colony of 300,000 bats at De Hoop Cave catch 100 tons
of insects a year, including many crop pests, thus providing an
important service to farmers in the Bredasdorp area.
With
bats eating all those insects, this means fewer chemicals and poisons
will be used on crops, and that's healthier for all of us!
Throughout the tropics the
seed dispersal and pollination activities of fruit- and nectar-eating
bats are vital to the survival of rain forests, with some bats acting as
‘keystone’ species in the lives of plants crucial to entire
ecosystems. Many plants bloom at night, using unique odours and
special flower shapes to attract bats. One example is the famous
baobab, Adansonia digitata which bats pollinate as they approach
from below in a manner likely to contact the flower’s reproductive
organs, while another is the Sausage Tree Kigelia africana.
By
helping to rebuild cut forests, bats are also making sure other animals
continue to have homes, shelter and food.
Examples include
wild bananas, breadfruit, avocados, dates, figs, peaches and mangoes. Although
many of these are now commercially cultivated, the maintenance of wild
stocks is vital as a source of genetic material for breeding
disease-resistant and productive varieties in the future.
More than 300 plant species in the Old World tropics alone rely on the
pollinating and seed-dispersal services of bats, providing more than 450
economically important products, valued in the hundreds of million of
US$ annually. Just one, the durian fruit of Southeast Asia, sells
for US$120 million each year and relies exclusively on flying foxes for
pollination.
The
value of tropical bats in reforestation alone is enormous. Seeds
dropped by bats account for up to 95% of forest re-growth on cleared
land.
Studies of bats have
contributed to the development of navigational aids for the blind, birth
control and artificial insemination techniques, vaccine production and
drug testing, as well as to a better understanding of low-temperature
surgical procedures.
The
saliva from the vampire bat is being studied to see if someday a
new medicine can be found to help people with heart problems.
In many African and Asian countries, as well as certain Pacific Islands,
bats are a normal part of people’s diets.
WE
CAN PROTECT BATS BY TELLING OTHERS HOW HELPFUL AND USEFUL THEY ARE!
