BANISHING VAMPIRES DUELING IN THE DARK WIND ENERGY in the jungle a new threat to bats WWW.BATCON.ORG SUMMER 2004 BATSBAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL SleepingSleeping inin thethe LeavesLeaves R ED B ATS’ WINTER S ECRET Vo lume 22, No. 2, Summer 2004 BATS P.O. Box 162603, Austin, Texas 78716 (512) 327-9721 • Fax (512) 327-9724 Publications Staff D i rector of Publications: Robert Locke Photo Editor: Kristin Hay FEATURES Copyeditors: Angela England, Valerie Locke B AT S welcomes queries from writers. Send your article proposal with a brief outline and a description of any photos to the address 1 Banishing the Vampires of the Jungle above or via e-mail to: [email protected]. A remote village finds a new appreciation for bats M e m b e r s : Please send changes of address and all correspondence by Sandra Peters to the address above or via e-mail to [email protected]. Please include your label, if possible, and allow six weeks for the change 4 Wind Energy & the Threat to Bats of address. BCI, industry and government join to resolve a new danger facing Founder & Pre s i d e n t : Dr. Merlin D. Tuttle Associate Executive Director: Elaine Acker A m e r i c a ’s bats B o a rd of Tru s t e e s : Andrew Sansom, Chair by Merlin D. Tuttle John D. Mitchell, Vice Chair Verne R. Read, Chairman Emeritus 6 Hibernation: Red Bats do it in the Dirt Peggy Phillips, Secretary Elizabeth Ames Jones, Treasurer by Brad Mormann, Miranda Milam and Lynn Robbins Jeff Acopian; Mark A. Adkins; Eugene L. Ames, Jr.; Charles Chester; Robert E. Gerrie; Nancy Harte; Joan Kelleher; Tr a v i s 8 Forest Bats in the Timberlands Mathis; Scott McVay; Thomas Read; Eugenio Clariond Reyes; Wilhelmina E. Robertson; William Scanlan; Lee Schmitt; Patsy by Michael J. Lacki Steves; Dr. Merlin D. Tuttle; Roy Vaughan; Marc We i n b e r g e r. 10 Dueling in the Dark Advisory Trustees: Sharon R. Forsyth; Dr. D.J. Sibley, Jr. Scientific Advisory Board : What moths tell bats in the heat of battle Dr. Leslie S. Hall, Dr. Greg Richards, Bruce Thomson, by Nickolay Hristov Australia; Dr. Irina K. Rakhmatulina, Azerbaijan; Dr. Luis F. Aguirre, Bolivia; Dr. Wilson Uieda, Brazil; Dr. M. Brock Fenton, Canada; Dr. Jiri Gaisler, Czech Republic; Dr. Uwe 12 Amazing Diversity Schmidt, G e r m a n y ; D r. Ganapathy Marimuthu, Dr. Different strokes for different moths? Shahroukh Mistry, India; Dr. Arnulfo Moreno. Dr. Rodrigo Medellín, Mexico; Ir. Herman Limpens, Netherlands; Dr. by Jesse R. Barber Armando Rodriguez-Duran, Puerto Rico; Dr. Ya-Fu Lee, Taiwan; Dr. Paul A. Racey, United Kingdom; Dr. Denny G. DEPARTMENTS Constantine, Robert Currie, Dr. Theodore H. Fleming, Dr. Thomas H. K u n z, Dr. Gary F. McCracken, Dr. Don E. Wilson, United States; Dr. José R. Ochoa G., Venezuela. 14 News and Notes Membership Manager: Amy McCartney New homes for bats at a Canadian bridge B AT S (ISSN 1049-0043) is published quarterly by Bat A Chinese fishing bat Conservation International, Inc., a nonprofit corporation supported by tax-deductible contributions used for public Managing bats & mines: a conference in Reno education, research, and conservation of threatened and Finding the bats of the bosque endangered bats. The wish list © Bat Conservation International, 2004. All rights reserved. Bat Conservation International is dedicated to conserving and restoring bat populations and habitats around the world. Using COVER PHOTO: This eastern red bat’s coloring makes it almost invisible amid the oak non-confrontational approaches, we educate people about the ecological and economic values of bats, advance scientific leaves on the forest floor. Researchers discovered that some red bats survive the knowledge about bats and the ecosystems that rely on them, and winter by burrowing into piles of leaves. (Story begins on page 6.) preserve critical bat habitats through win-win solutions that benefit both humans and bats. C O U R TESY OF LYNN ROBBINS A subscription to BATS is included with BCI membership: Senior, Student or Educator $30; Basic $35; Friends of BCI $45; Supporting $60; Contributing $100; Patron $250; Sustaining $500; Founder’s Circle $1,000. Third-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Send address changes to Bat Conservation COURTESY OF FPL ENERGY ( SEE PAGE 4) International, P.O. Box 162603, Austin, TX 78716. BATS is printed on a 50/20 chlorine-free recycled paper with a water-based coating on the cover. Banishing theVampires of the Jungle by Sandra Peters A remote village finds a new appreciation for bats ushing the thought of my mother’s trtrepidationepidation to the back of my mind, I Pclimbed into the small, single-engine plane and took my seat on a sack of rice. With my knees near my shoulders and my head wedged against the ceiling, the pilot gave me a thumbs-up, and I was on my way to A’Ukr’Ukre,e, a remote village hidden deep in the Amazon jungle of Brazil. Bats fascinate kids, whether they live in American cities or the Brazilian jungle. These youngsters display educational materials that became an effective adjunct to a BCI-funded project to expel vampire bats from a traditional Amazon village. Volume 22, No. 2 S U M M E R 2 0 0 4 1 B A T S With the support of Bat Conservation International, I was returning to this traditional, indigenous village in hopes of helping to solve a serious vampire-bat problem without harm- ing the many beneficial bats of the region. A’ Uk re is one of 10 small villages in the Kayapó In d i g e n o u s A rea (KIA). Only a few thousand people live in the KIA, which is more than twice the size of Costa Rica. Although A’ Uk re isn’t much to look at – 29 rough houses arranged around a central Ta k a n a, or Me n’s House – the pristine forest that surrounds it is home to many species of plants and animals. The Kayapó still live a largely traditional lifestyle with their own language, elaborate rituals and festivals, and intricate body painting. Feather headdresses and jewelry made of teeth and bones are often worn, and bows and arrows continue to be used. Most resources are obtained from hunting, fishing and small-scale agriculture, and villagers have limited contact with the larger Brazilian society. The common vampire (Desmodus rotundus), one of only three bat species that are vampires, I became acquainted with the Kayapó in 2002, when I was feeds on the blood of mammals, primarily livestock. They are found throughout much of Latin America, from Mexico to northern Argentina. conducting graduate re s e a rch at Pinkaití, a field station about 1 7 ⁄2 miles (12 kilometers) upriver from A’ Uk re. During the 1990s, the villagers had sold much of the highly va l u a b l e mahogany found in their territory. But, in partnership with C o n s e r vation International, they established a 31-square - m i l e ( 8 , 0 0 0 - h e c t a re) forest re s e r ve (Pinkaití), where stands of mahogany trees remain intact. Because mahogany trees are widely dispersed, only a few trees per acre are usually harve s t- ed. My re s e a rch, supported by two BCI Scholarships, exam- ined the impact of this type of logging on bat communities. During my time at Pinkaití, I was constantly in awe of my field assistants from A’Ukre. Their forest skills and knowledge of plants and animals were incredible. They expertly navigated boats around treefalls and other obstacles at night, built rain shelters from vegetation in minutes and scaled trees with the grace and agility of squirrels. After learning a bit of the Kayapó language, I began to understand why most villagers were convinced that bats are dangerous. The common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) was causing significant problems in A’Ukre. Although rarely The indigenous village of A’Ukre retains a largely traditional lifestyle (left). When vampire bats started showing up in homes, the village lacked the resources to deal with them short of killing bats in general. BCI Scholar Sandra Peters, who had been doing bat research in the region, sought help from BCI’s Global Grassroots Conservation Fund and was awarded a grant to banish the vampires by putting screens on all openings into the houses (upper left). B A T S 2 S U M M E R 2 0 0 4 Volume 22, No. 2 The plan was simple: Cover all openings with coarse mosquito netting so the bats could no longer get inside the houses. T h e w o rk was hot and dirty but ve ry successful. After three weeks, each of the 29 homes in the village was completely screened and va m p i re - f re e . An unforeseen payoff of the project has been a distinct change in villagers’ understanding of bats. The field guides I had brought with me helped convince people that many types of bats existed and that most are impor- tant to the health of their forest. Initially, children would stop by my house to look at the pictures of bats in the field guides. But soon both adults and kids were showing up, often too many to fit in my house. The author and a number of helpers covered windows and other openings with screens to keep out vampire bats.