Are #Bats #Bootiful? @USGSWildlife #BatHouse #Entomology #Halloween #HelpfulMammals #OrganicFarm #WhiteNoseSyndrome

Eek! What's that? A flying bat. Run for your lives! Or preferably, one could display some uncommon sense. The motif of a swooping bat as an object of fear and terror is so common that children's cartoons and youth comics employ it regularly, indoctrinating us early, implanting an idea that bats are to be run from, are to be reviled, are to be eradicated. I'm Batman, anyone? The entire concept of a "batman," a vigilante crime fighter who strikes bad guys under cover of darkness, relies heavily upon our collective fear of bats. (In fact, this misguided fear is literally what inspires the comic book character Bruce Wayne to take up a bat's image.)

How many Halloween cartoons did you view as a child that featured at least one scene with a swooping black cloud of bats? (Every "spooky" one of them.) And what is always the response of anyone encountering a bat/s in any of these cartoons? (Abject terror. Shrieks and screams.) Bats rely on bio sonar or echolocation. When sound is how an animal "sees," can you imagine what it must be like to have nearly every human contact involve bombastic tones? Poor bats. Traditional Halloween imagery has unfortunately done a great disservice to bats. (Don't even get me started on the whole vampire bat thing.) We have taught the common man that bats should be avoided at best and dispatched on sight at worse.

As misfortune oft has it, bats desperately need our help these days. Enclaves of bats are being wiped out wholesale by a horrid spreading disease called White Nose Syndrome which is caused by Pseudogymnoascus desctructans, a cold-loving white fungus that burrows into the hibernating mammal and kills indiscriminately. [See NWHC WNS data.] In many areas the bat populations have thinned considerably and the disease is not yet contained. It does not aid the situation to have humans be squeamish (and shrieking) on top of things. These are dire days for bats. We must step up to find a cure obviously, but we must also try to bolster healthy bat populations in the meanwhile in order to prevent the possibility of a catastrophic extinction level event for bats. This is happening on our watch. Therefore, we must deign to stop it.

It is well past time, we citizens reclaim the bat for the good side. I will lead the charge, as someone must. Here's a tidbit: a single insectivorous bat will eat approximately 1/3 its weight in insects each night of a successful hunt. You heard me. This is nature at its finest, natural pest control. A word to the wise, if one plans to farm organically then there had darn well better be some bat houses placed strategically throughout his farmland. Not a farmer? If one is a proactive community resident, a so-called good neighbor, it wouldn't hurt to build a bat house or two around his property. In this new Age of Insect-borne Pandemics in which we live, the benefits of cultivating animals which help control insect populations cannot be stressed enough. If you're unable to build a bat house, consider surveying bat populations in your area and submitting your findings to the National Wildlife Health Center [Go to www.nwhc.usgs.gov for further instructions]. As if chowing down on pests weren't sufficient to make us adore bats, these helpful mammals also pollinate flowers and disperse fruit seeds. (There goes your food chain.)

Bat drawing, vintage sketch

Time to spread some bat love! As much as I would like to believe otherwise, I do realize it may not be feasible for everyone to build a bat house in his yard; however, there is something that anyone can do and that is to work to reclaim the bat's image, restoring its identity as a helpful mammal that should be appreciated. We don't have to remove bats from Halloween celebrations, we merely need to adjust our thinking. If we must think of Halloween when we think of bats, then let's create anew, coining positive associations. I'll start. I declare bats are bootiful! Hopefully, the next time someone encounters a bat/s unexpectedly, the person might recognize that the bat is likely as startled as he, and respond accordingly, by stifling any screams. Remember, be kind to bats!

P.S. It's my hope to write and illustrate a children's book using the term "bootiful" as an image altering descriptor of bats. I have a rough idea for it in my mind now --- it'll make for a perfect Halloween book release, providing the entire North American bat population hasn't been wiped out by then. In order to truly counteract the negative imagery of bats in our society, we've got to (re)educate everyone, starting with our young.

#Farming #ThreatWatch: Black-Eyed #Peas vs Cowpea Curculio #AgTech #Entomology

While browsing yesterday's AJC, I came across a "Sunday Conversation" feature with an UGA entomologist, Dr. Stormy Sparks (which is quite a moniker, but he should have perhaps been a meteorologist) discussing a pest which threatens black-eyed peas, a weevil called the cowpea curculio. No doubt the article was included partly as a human interest story, because many folks, particularly Southerners, believe eating black-eyed peas --- my favorite recipe is (a vegetarian) Hoppin' John --- on New Year's Day will bring good luck, a tradition with its roots in the time of slavery (that peculiar institution). I love peas generally, but personally I'd have to say that the black-eyed pea is at the bottom of the list --- although I appreciate them more now than as I child. Regardless, of my personal distaste for black-eyed peas, I have no desire to see a virulent pest threaten the plants' vitality.

South Georgia used to be a big producer of black-eyed peas (circa 1950s) but in recent decades production has decreased due to a combination of factors, which include a pest that has developed resistance to various pesticides. Entomologists are working to understand the weevil's odd effects on the black-eyed pea plants' ecosystem, in hopes of finding other ways to counteract it. This might take the form of a better (man-made) chemical pesticide or an organic agent.

I am greatly interested in entomology for three main reasons: 1) bugs often look cool (this is my childhood fascination), 2) insect borne disease transmission is an ever growing threat to human (and domesticated animal) survival, and 3) insect crop devastation is another major threat to human survival. I hope to use my fascination with bugs (1) to discover methods to help combat 2 and 3. This is the main reason why I have tried to absorb everything I could with regard to entomology. When one intends to live off the land (farming, hunting, fishing, etc.) and one lives far from the madding crowd (acreage in or near wilderness) the likelihood of detrimental pest encounters goes up exponentially. One must be prepared.

Being an amateur ecologist as well, I understand that chemical pesticides can bring their own harmful side effects, and so it's my hope to discover and/or develop natural, organic methods to counteract bug issues. (For instance, I have recently been experimenting with food grade diatomaceous earth.) In the history of agriculture, our reliance on chemical pesticides is a modern contrivance. I hope to employ "ancient" methods augmented with modern science and technology plus a bit of ingenuity to defeat any encroaching pests, be they ticks, weevils or what have you. I will look to farming cultures of old and update and adjust.