Selah Bat News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Leading Bat Biologists Bring New Technology to Blanco County

Johnson City, Texas, August 1, 2005 – Nationally recognized scientists paid a visit to the Bamberger Ranch Preserve this week to research the Brazilian Free-tailed bat colony at the Bamberger’s “Chiroptorium”, the name given to their man-made bat cave. Dr. Tom Kunz, along with several graduate assistants from Boston University, have visited the Chiroptorium and other caves around the state each month since April in order to monitor bat populations with new, sensitive infrared thermal cameras. This infrared technology is the cutting edge in research in regards to studying bat behavior, as well as making accurate colony counts of bats within cave systems.

The Bamberger Ranch provides unique research opportunities for many biologists. “It’s the first time in history that anyone has had the opportunity to study the founding of a cave ecosystem,” says Dr. Kunz. Scientists have known for many years what types of organisms share habitat with bats in Hill Country limestone caves, but because the Chiroptorium in man-made, it’s like “starting from scratch.” Completed in 1998, the man-made bat cave, also known as the “Chiroptorium” was designed to house 1 million Brazilian free-tailed bats, a very important component to a healthy Texas ecosystem. Although the Brazilian free-tailed bat is not considered endangered or at risk, the cave was built in an attempt to mitigate damage done to bat habitat around the area as large ranches are being fragmented with development, subdivisions, highways and highlines.

Bats moved into the Chiroptorium in large numbers during the late summer of 2003 during migration and formed a maternal colony in the spring of 2004. It is widely believed that bats will return to the cave in which they were born every year, and the Bamberger Ranch Preserve has noted an increase of bats since 2003. The scientists set up infrared cameras and recorded nightly bat emergences at the Bamberger Ranch and other area caves. Because they are warm blooded mammals, bats show up on video as white dots. Computer software then detects and counts each white image and provides a more accurate population count than any other previous methods used by researchers. To date, there are more than 14,000 bats residing in the cave. Researchers are very interested with studying the beginning of this new ecosystem within the cave: as bats continue to reside there, other life forms will likely move in as well, such as dermestid beetles, cave crickets, spiders, and a variety of predators.

Brazilian free-tailed bats are a migratory bat that spend the winter months in Mexico and Central America. They are commonly referred to as “Mexican free-tailed bats”. They come to the southern United States in order to have their pups and to feed on large amounts of crop pests, mainly the corn ear worm moth. Large colonies of females roost in cave systems around the state, numbering in the millions, where each female will give birth to one baby bat, or “pup” in the early summer. By late summer, the babies are fully grown and weaned and join their mothers on nightly feeding of insects. By eating millions of insects when they emerge from their roosts each night, bats reduce the amount of damaged crops and money spent on pesticides.

Bamberger Ranch Preserve is a non-profit organization whose mission focuses on land conservation and environmental education.