Montana's Bat Man: Matt Bell

Glacier Lake

Tonight we were in for a very special treat. Swan Valley Connections had a guest speaker, Matt Bell, take anyone interested on a bat walk around Lindbergh Lake. In the Swan Valley Matt is known as the man to see when you have bat problems, questions or anything else bat related. Batman you better look out for Matt, he's going to take your job soon.

Before the bat walk began Matt gave a short talk on bats to give us some background information.



Here are some of the highlights.

Bats are mammals that eat fruit, insects, other bats and drink blood. Exactly which of these they participate in depends on the bat species. Bats that are insectivores are of significant importance to us humans. They give us a way to protect our crops and livestock without using pesticides. In fact, a single bat can eat over a pound of insects a night. There's even a cave in Mexico where the bat colony eats TWO TONS of insects each night! I don't know what two tons of insects looks like and I never want to. Just thinking about it creeps me out. This reminds me that I need to put my bat box up on the roof when I get home.

Dead bat found on our hike to Glacier Lake

Unfortunately many species of bats are dying and are predicted to be extinct within this century. Humans are expanding their habitat and destroying the habitat of bats. Bats just don't have a place to live and winter. Humans use insecticides that either kill bats food or slowly poison them. Imagine if you were fed insecticides every time you ate something. Wind turbines also kill bats when they are put up in their migration path. Bats turn off their sonar when they fly for long distances and some of them run into the turbines and die. Other bats play with the turbines but this causes a change in the air pressure, causing their lungs to explode. There is a fungus called Pseudogymnoascus destructans which causes white-nose syndrome in bats while they roost in caves over the winter. As the fungus grows it irritates the hibernating bats which wake up and rewarm themselves to get rid of the fungus. The bats then go back into hibernation, only to have to wake up and rewarm themselves repeatedly as the fungus grows back. This uses up their calorie storage and they starve to death before winter is over. To date there is no treatment for the fungus and no plans to get rid of it in caves because it would kill other organisms in caves.

That's enough of sad new about bats. Let's get back to more exciting bat news.

Bats live to 30 years old and have one pup (baby bat) a year at most, sometimes less. The pup is 1/3rd of its weight at birth. Can you imagine giving birth to a 30+ pound infant? There would be no more humans on earth if this was also true for us. After three weeks of nursing the pup will begin to find it's own food with the help of mom. But after a week of training the pup is on its own. When collecting food bats uses echolocation to find the insects. Basically they scream which sends out sound waves that hit the insects and bounce back to them. Bats that fly higher catch larger insects and send out a lower frequency where the sounds waves are further apart. The opposite is true for bats that fly lower. When the bats reach an insect they scoop it into their mouth with their tail or wing membrane.

Bat walks are popular in Europe but not in the United State. I bet that would change quickly if everyone had a chance to meet Matt. Using Matt's bat detectors we went to the bridge near Lindbergh Lake to hear and locate some of the ten different species of bats native to Montana. Children ran around tripping over each other in their excitement. Adults blinded each other with flashlights as they tried to find the bats when we heard them screaming over the bat detector. In total we saw four species of bats: the silver haired bat, the hoary bat, the little brown bat and the western small footed bat. Genevieve was even able to take take a picture of the hoary bat.

I highly encourage each and every one of you to go on a bat walk. I'm going to invest in a bat detector when I get home so I can do this too.

But if you see a bat, don't touch it. Bats carry rabies and that is something you don't want to get. Rabies effects your central nervous system and you die a very painful death within a few days of getting it. Rabies is almost 100% deadly, there has only been one person that has survived rabies. So don't touch bats! This doesn't mean that you should kill bats, we desperately need them. As long as you don't touch a bat (dead or alive) you'll be fine. And if you are scratched by a bat, see your doctor immediately. They can start you on a rabies vaccine and you won't get rabies.

Another picture of the dead bat

If you don't want to worry about getting rabies, don't talk to Stephanie Coffey. The team was hiking along when she spotted a dead bat. Luckily, we had had the bat talk the night before and knew not to touch it. I did get pretty close taking some pictures and then Stephanie told me horror stories about rabies until I was convinced I had rabies for a couple of days. I know I don't have rabies, but I was pretty freaked out. The moral of the story is, don't ever touch bats and don't talk to Stephanie about rabies, ever!