By Dan Silvernail, Eagle Scout Candidate and Conserve Wildlife Foundation Volunteer
Big brown bats in an attic space (c) Phil Wooldridge
Bats don’t get enough credit. They fly around at night devouring thousands of mosquitoes and other unwanted insects. They reduce our need to use pesticides to protect crops and trees. Their droppings, or guano, can even be used as garden fertilizer.
Aside from their nightly all-you-can-eat buffet, they don’t have the easiest life. People needlessly fear them, believing myths that they all have rabies or want to fly into your hair! Over six million bats have been wiped out by a disease called White-nose Syndrome which attacks them while they are hibernating. Their natural forest habitat is often destroyed. When they find a nice building in which to live, they often get kicked out, leaving them in need of a tight, warm place to give birth and raise their young.
That’s where we can help. We can build these flying mammals nice summer homes where they can hang out with their babies. By creating narrow spaces inside the house, painting the outside a dark color and caulking up the sides to retain the heat, and roughening up the wood to make it easier for the bats to climb in, we give something back to the bats for sparing us hundreds more mosquito bites and playing an important role in our ecosystem.
That’s why I chose to put together bat house kits for my Eagle Scout Project and why you and your family can come to this weekend’s New Jersey Wild Outdoor Expo to help build them.
Family fun at the NJ Wild Outdoor Expo
- When: Saturday, September 13 & Sunday, September 14, Noon and 2:00 PM
- Where: Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area, Jackson Township, New Jersey
- What: The workshops are free. Materials are available on a first come, first served basis.
- Children can do a lot of the work to build the house, so families are encouraged to do the project together.
The bat houses will be donated to Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey to put up before bats are evicted from attics, eaves, and buildings, so they can easily find a new place to roost. Stop by CWF’s table in the Conservation Tent to learn more about bats and other imperiled wildlife species. You can always pick up plans to buy materials and make bat houses on your own.
Please come show New Jersey bats some appreciation!
Tags: 2014, bats, New Jersey, new jersey wildlife, wildlife