The author of this guest commentary is Michele S. Byers, Executive Director of New Jersey Conservation Foundation.
It's Halloween season and you're probably seeing "bats" everywhere--kids dressed in Batman and vampire costumes, and bat decorations.
Here's some cool news about REAL bats: The discovery, in New Jersey's Highlands, of a new population of endangered Indiana bats!
Three Indiana bats were recently found during a survey at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge in Sussex County. These tiny bats grow to only about two inches long, and have been on the federal endangered species list since 1967. Despite the protections, the recorded population had dropped to under 20,000 bats by 1995.
Here in New Jersey, we knew Indiana bats hibernated in old Morris County mines, but the discovery marked the first time they had been spotted on the Wallkill Refuge's 5,300 preserved acres. More important, one of the Indiana bats was breeding. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is doing more surveys to establish the range of the bats.
In addition to Indiana bats, New Jersey is home to five other breeding bats, including little brown bat, big brown bat, northern long-eared bat, small-footed myotis and Eastern pipistrel, as well as migrating populations of hoary bat, red bat and silver-haired bat.
New Jersey's largest known "batcave" is the Hibernia Mine in Rockaway Township, Morris County, with 30,000 bats of mixed species at last count. Bats have been hibernating there since at least the 1930s. The cave has special iron gates to let the bats go in and out, but keep vandals, interested spectators, and cavers out.
If all this talk of bats has you feeling a little creepy, you should know that bats are victims of extraordinarily bad press and massive misinformation campaigns. Of the 1,100-plus bat species in the world, only three are vampiric; and those are tiny and limit their blood-sucking to other animals, with no residual "undead" consequences. Nearly one quarter of all the mammal species in the world are bats.
Like many unusual creatures, bats suffer because they are different. Bats are flying mammals and so unique that scientists place them in their own group, Chiroptera (meaning 'hand-wing'). However, they fall into the superorder Archonta, which includes creatures like lemurs and primates ... which, yes, makes us distantly related.
And like all creatures, they perform essential services. Bugs are a staple of many bat diets and they consume an enormous amount of them. Little brown bats found in New Jersey can each eat 1,000 insects every hour. Bats also pollinate flowers, and fruit-eating bats spread seeds. One bat can disperse 60,000 seeds in one night. More than 70 percent of our tropical fruits--including bananas, avocados and mangoes and many others--are pollinated by fruit bats.
Another myth to dispel is that many bats are rabid. Although bats, like any mammal, can contract rabies, it is not a common occurrence and sick bats are usually non-aggressive. Just don't handle them.
Last winter, a mysterious new disease appeared that has the potential to decimate bat populations. "White-nose syndrome" has been identified in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the disease killed as many as 11,000 bats. Biologists so far have no idea where it comes from, how it spreads or how to stop it.
Bats have life spans averaging 25 to 40 years, and are among the slowest reproducing animals on earth. Most species have only one "pup" per year, so reversing any population decline is a very slow process. That's why finding a new population of Indiana bats in a preserved area like the Wallkill Refuge is such encouraging news, and another reason to keep preserving New Jersey's critical wildlife habitats.
Next time you see a bat, think of the thousands of mosquitoes and other insects it has eaten, and the yummy fruits you enjoy, and applaud.