75th Celebration: 2014 - Creatures of the Night

2014 marks the First Annual National Bat Week. Although achieving this recognition for these much maligned creatures was a nationwide effort, the roots for this national celebration run deep in Idaho. One of the most significant events with respect to bat conservation in the West happened in 1994. That year, biologists in several western states began to develop a conservation strategy for the Townsend's big-eared bat. Idaho helped lead the Townsend's big-eared bat strategy which was the impetus for the subsequent formation of both the Western Bat Working Group and the Idaho Bat Working Group. Why should Idaho be concerned about bats? The answer to this is both dollars and sense. Insect-eating bats are the night-time equivalent of insect-eating birds. They can consume up to their body weight in insects each night. For Idaho, this translates into an estimated $313 million dollar savings for Idaho's agricultural industry. If we didn't have bats in Idaho, farmers would have to use more pesticides, driving up the cost of producing the food we eat. Bats play an essential role in our environment. While in Idaho their appetite for insects helps agriculture and our forests by eating damaging insects, in other regions of the globe, they are the primary pollinators for fruits such as mangoes, cocoa and bananas. Over 500 plants rely on bats to pollinate their flowers or spread their seeds. These nocturnal creatures also redistribute nutrients across the landscape. Idaho is home to 14 regularly-occurring bat species, all of which are of the insect-eating variety. They roost in caves, abandoned mines, cliffs and rock outcrops, bridges, buildings, trees and foliage, bat boxes, and sometimes people's attics. To read more about Idaho's Creatures of the Night and other 75th Celebration stories, go to http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/75th.