10/24/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/24/2024 07:29
10/24/2024
(HARTFORD, CT) - The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) is celebrating the importance of bats during Bat Week, an international event celebrated annually during the week before Halloween. Bats play a critical role in ecosystems worldwide and provide tremendous value to humans in a variety of ways. Bats in North America also currently face an unprecedented population crisis, making it even more important to call attention to these often-misunderstood creatures.
Bat Week continues the celebration of bats in Connecticut which began with Bat Appreciation Dayon September 15, 2024, a cooperative effort between the DEEP Wildlife Division and the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development's Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine in East Granby.
"Halloween is a great time to celebrate our cooperative efforts to conserve bats, which have been decimated across Connecticut and much of North America," saidDEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes. "Bats are not only cool animals with unique abilities, they are incredibly helpful to humans in a variety of ways, including feeding on insects and pests, such as mosquitoes, which spread diseases like West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE)."
There are many common myths about bats, but here is the truth:
Bats are tremendously valuable to humans. For example, bats are the single greatest known predator of night-flying insects like mosquitoes. A colony of 150 big brown bats can eat roughly 1.3 million insects annually. Bats are estimated to contribute at least $3 billion annually to the U.S. agricultural economy through pest control and pollination. Bats' big appetite for insects also benefits the forest products industry and reduces the need for chemical pesticide use in many areas. In parts of the U.S., particularly the Southwest, bats also are important plant pollinators.
"For far too long, bats largely have been misunderstood and feared by people, which admittedly makes them a great addition to Halloween celebrations but also undermines their irreplaceable value to the economy, ecosystem, and human health," saidJenny Dickson, CT DEEP Wildlife Division Director. "Celebrating Bat Week helps change public perceptions of these fascinating and quirky flying mammals. The more people learn about bats, the more they want to protect them, which is so critical as we work to facilitate the recovery of bats impacted by White Nose Syndrome and other conservation threats."
Bats in Crisis: White Nose Syndrome
White Nose Syndrome(WNS), a disease caused by an invasive fungus, has killed millions of bats across the U.S. and Canada since 2006. For example, WNS has killed over 90% of northern long-eared, little brown, and tricolored bats in North America in less than 10 years. The WNS crisis has prompted state and federal governments to take protective actions, including listing multiple bat species as threatened or endangered under Federal and State Endangered Species Acts. In Connecticut, the six species most affected by WNS include the big brown, little brown, northern long-eared, tricolored, eastern small-footed, and Indiana bats. All of these species except the big brown bat are now listed as endangered under the Connecticut Endangered Species Act.
Since 2007, the DEEP Wildlife Division has been an active participant in the WNS response. Each year, DEEP biologists monitor bats in Connecticut to document population status and participate in region-wide bat monitoring and conservation programs.
Here's how you can help in the effort to conserve bats:
Want to learn more about bats? Follow CT Fish and Wildlife on Facebookor Instagramfor interesting facts, photos, and videos about bats during Bat Week, or visit the DEEP Bat Webpage.
Photo credit:Paul Benjunas/CT DEEP Wildlife Division
Bats are the single greatest predator of night-flying insects. A single colony of big brown bats can eat roughly 1.3 million insects every year - nearly 9,000 insects per bat.
Twitter: @CTDEEPNewsFacebook: DEEP on Facebook
DEEP Communications
[email protected]
860-424-3110