CHECK-OUT TIME FOR BATS
Last Call to Remove Bats Before End of Season
It’s check-out time again for bats. Bats in the
Cayman Islands can only be moved out of buildings safely
until mid-May when baby bat pups are born. For help removing
bats permanently and humanely, call the Bat Conservation
Program at 916-6784, the Wildlife Hotline at 917-BIRD,
the National Trust at 749-1121 or contact
us. Bats not out before the deadline cannot be properly
removed until November.
To find out if there are bats in your building, go outside
at dusk, just after sunset, but while the sky is still
light, and watch. If you see bats emerging, do not plug
the hole. Plugging holes can trap bats inside, forcing
them into your living areas. Bats can be sealed out (not
in!) using simple methods and volunteers are available
to advise and/or recommend qualified professionals to assist.
Bats give birth to only one pup per year. Bat-pups cannot
fly for several months and remain in the roost while their
mothers go out to catch insects. For this reason, exclusions
are not done during the summer when these flightless young
are present. Often people don’t realize that they
have bats in the roof until summer when they hear the young
ones squeaking as the mothers return to nurse them in the
quiet pre-dawn hours. To avoid the long waiting period,
the Bat Conservation Program is hoping to reach everyone
with this message in time so that bats can be moved before
the mid-May deadline.
“Bats are harmless. Each one eats up to 2,000 mosquitoes
and other insects, including crop and garden pests, every
night. But, they should still be moved out of roofs to
avoid odour problems. We want to help get bats out of houses
and calm fears.” stated Lois Blumenthal, Coordinator
of the Caribbean Bat Conservation Project for Bat Conservation
International (www.batcon.org )
and Director of the Bat Conservation Program for the National
Trust, “Our goal is for all bats to live in bat houses
and no more bats in roofs.”
With the cooperation of Caribbean Utilities Co Ltd (CUC),
Ron Moser’s Machine Shop and extensive volunteer
labour, there are over 80 bat houses in all districts of
Grand Cayman. They provide alternative habitat to help
to keep bats from moving into roofs. Bat houses are a great
success but bats won’t move out of roofs without
an exclusion.
Bats are part of the balance of nature and helpful to
humans in many ways, notably, the control of insects but
they are also important pollinators and seed dispersers.
Bats living in roofs in the Cayman Islands are always insect-eating
species. Fruit bats have never been found in roofs here
and do not use bat houses. Bat houses can only provide
habitat for three of the Cayman Islands’ nine species.
The other bat species need forest and cave habitat to survive.
For free information, a map of Cayman Islands bat house
locations, photos of local bats, or to download an educational
slide show about the Cayman Islands Bat Project, go the “Bats” page
on this site.

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