Getting A Bat Rap Biologist Aims To Boost Bats’ Image

Bats really get a bad rap.

For one thing, they’re not flying mice. And they eat quantities of mosquitoes that would otherwise be snacking on you.

Margaret Gaspari, a staff biologist at Point Defiance Zoo who teaches bat appreciation to scores of schoolchildren and zoo visitors, is conducting a bat census this week around the state.

She and other bat conservationists are concerned the species’ global population is decreasing because of humans destroying or disturbing habitats.

A single bat can eat up to 600 mosquitoes an hour and also devour moths and a number of other garden pests.

Bats have been subjected to “a couple of centuries of bad press,” and conjure up images of blood-sucking, horror-movie vampires, Gaspari said.

In fact, vampire bats exist only in Central and South America, and they’ll choose cow blood over human blood. Furthermore, they don’t actually suck the blood - they bite and lick.

Bats also have a reputation for carrying rabies.

A 4-year-old Lewis County girl died of rabies transmitted by a bat this March - the first confirmed instance of a rabid bat transmitting the disease to a human and the first time in 50 years a Washington resident died of rabies, said Kathleen South, a state Department of Health spokeswoman.

“The basic nature (of bats and other wild animals) is to avoid humans,” so when they approach humans, it likely is a sign of sickness, South said.Bat-watching is an under appreciated hobby, Gaspari said. A good place to hunker down to watch bats is at dusk, near still water like a pond.

“They come out and drink by skimming across the water,” she said. “It’s like breakfast. They’ve been fasting for 12 hours and are thirsty.”

A bat detector, which translates to human hearing range the sonar-like sounds bats use to navigate by, is to bat-watchers what binoculars are to bird-watchers.

“There’s no way to describe it, hearing a bat go into feeding mode,” Gaspari said, imitating the tick-ticktick of a bat searching for mosquitoes.

As the bat gets closer to its prey, the frequency of the ticks increase. Just before the attack, “it sounds like a zipper,” Gaspari said.