Bats get cold and fall onto ground in Autumn; they need a warm-up treat

If you find a still bat on the ground, don’t pick it up with your hands. It may still be alive, just in torpor from the cold weather. It may need to be warmed up, fed and placed on a tree.

Keep reading Bats get cold and fall onto ground in Autumn; they need a warm-up treat

Share/Save

Zombie Birds shows us we still have a lot to learn about animals

The latest animal research seems to prove that animals are sexually and morally freaky in ways we never imagined. This book turns biology into fun sideshows.

Keep reading Zombie Birds shows us we still have a lot to learn about animals

Curious Critters: local animals with excellent PR

Photographer David FitzSimmons gives local birds, frogs and other common animals the spotlight in a kids book with sharp macro pictures and funny text.

Keep reading Curious Critters: local animals with excellent PR

Little Brown Bat stoned to death by Midtown workers

little brown bat BY randomtruth

Two grown men threw rocks at a little brown bat perched 25 feet up on a midtown office building, causing it to fall, break its wing and have to be euthanized

Keep reading Little Brown Bat stoned to death by Midtown workers

Could humans ecolocate like bats and whales?

Daniel Kish, a blind genius, taught himself to ecolocate as a kid by making clicking sounds. Now he’s trying to teach other blind people the skill people have known about for centuries but seldom used.

Keep reading Could humans ecolocate like bats and whales?

Delmarva squirrel needs land; flying squirrel needs pines;

Delmarva squirrels need land; PA squirrels need pine and a tour of other animal news

Keep reading Delmarva squirrel needs land; flying squirrel needs pines;

Woolly mammoths comeback in 5 years; FL monkeys decline

Japan to clone woolly mammoths soon. FL monkey colony down to 20 animals. Porcupine class in WI. Why Mexican wolves get crappy “experimental, non-essential” label

Keep reading Woolly mammoths comeback in 5 years; FL monkeys decline

Bats in or near Kruger in South Africa

Fruit bats roost Skukuza Camp in Kruger National Park/ By Zypresse Ulrike Loehr

Even in South Africa, where they’ve got some of the best wildlife-viewing on the planet, tourists and locals are still entertained by their bats. Ngwenya Lodge, which backs up against Kruger National Park, has built a number of bat houses. In Kruger itself Skukuza Camp has a roost for fruit bats.

“We have put up a number of bat houses on the property that are mostly occupied by Angolan and Little Freetail bats,” Brian Whiting, a director of the lodge told me in an email. “Some may be occupied by Giant yellow house bats,”

They don’t do tours, but they don’t need to since they’ve already figured out what time the bats leave their roost at different times of year.

The lodge also gets Wahlberg’s epauletted fruit bats, but those don’t live in houses. One study in Kruger showed they especially liked fig and sycamore trees. In Kruger many sleep “under the eaves of the shop,” Siyabona South Africa says.

Bats Gauteng & Northern Regions Bat Interest Group says South Africa has 56 bat species, including four fruit bats. Fruit bats (also known as flying foxes) are the ones tourists like me would be most interested in because they’re huge. South Africans have been building shed-sized bat houses for 50 years, hoping to wipe out mosquitoes and the malaria they carry.

Where to Go See Bats

Where to See Wildlife in

Keep reading Bats in or near Kruger in South Africa

NY Epicenter of Bat Disease

Some NY bat populations are down 95% because of white nose sydrome, which first appeared in 2006 and now reaches halfway across the country. The little brown bat and northern long-eared are the hardest hit.

Keep reading NY Epicenter of Bat Disease

NY Considers Capturing Bats to Save Them

little brown bat

“[New York state conservation officials] just held a summit and decided to pluck them out of the wild, but where to put them?” says Kasimoff, one of only a handful of people across the state that can care for bats, which require a special license because they can carry rabies. Kasimoff currently is minding 30 bats at the Bat World Big Apple, a shelter she runs out of her home on Long Island as part of Bat World International. New York state in particular wants to save the little brown bats–if any are left.

Keep reading NY Considers Capturing Bats to Save Them