When Halloween comes around, you might decorate with silky spider webs, creepy zombies, spooky ghosts, bony skeletons, and black bats. Bats are often associated with vampires, thanks in part to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, who can transform into a bat himself. In reality, bats are majestic, flying creatures that are incredibly important for environmental sustainability.
Bat Week is an international celebration designed to raise awareness about the need for bat conservation. These amazing creatures are essential to the health of the natural world and to our economy. Even though you may not see them, bats are hard at work all around us at night - eating tons of insects, pollinating flowers, and spreading seeds that grow new plants and trees.
Bats and The Environment
Bats make up a quarter of the world’s mammals with more than 1,300 species of bats worldwide. They live in nearly every environment on Earth except for extreme desert and arctic climates.
Insect-eating bats help to control disease-carrying and crop-harming insects, which helps reduce losses for farmers. Fruit-eating bats can spread seeds as they fly and digest food, which can help revive deforested lands. Nectar-feeding bats act as pollinators to many valuable plant species, including bananas, balsa wood, mangoes, agave and cashews.
Bats, however, face critical threats to their survival. Major threats include the loss of their natural habitats, reduced food supplies, the destruction of their roosts, and disease and hunting.. More than half of the bat species in the United States are in severe decline or listed as an endangered species.
What Can I Do?
There are many resources available on the Bat Week website such as an activity booklet for young learners to learn about cave ecosystems and national parks, a fact sheet that breaks down the myths and truths about bats, and even a cookbook that contains recipes inspired by bat-dependent foods. All of these resources are free and available for you to educate yourself and others about all things bats.
You may also be inspired to take action and do what you can to support bat conservation efforts. You can build a bat house at your home or in your neighborhood, take a bat walk with a bat expert in your community, or even organize a bat club to expand your reach in supporting bats.
Reading Recommendations
Some wonderful books have bats as the leading characters, like Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, available in both English and Spanish, or Bats At the Library by Brian Lies.
Check out these books and many more from the library! Be sure to ask a librarian if you’re looking for a more specific recommendation. You can also catch the replay of Virtual Author Talk: A Journey into the Hidden World of Tropical Bats with Scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, presented by Smithsonian Scientists Dr. Rachel Page, Dr. Dina Dechmann, and Dr. Teague O’Mara.
For decades, scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute have studied the remarkable biodiversity of bats on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, where an astonishing seventy-six species coexist. Now, for the first time, Smithsonian scientists’ expertise pairs with the stunning photography of National Geographic contributor Christian Ziegler for a captivating visual journey into the fascinating world of these elusive night creatures, to bring you the book Bat Island: A Rare Journey into the Hidden World of Tropical Bats.
The YPL Presents: Virtual Author series is funded and supported by the Foundation for the Yonkers Public Library.
This is a collaboration from A to Z!
Alison Robles is a Part-Time Junior Clerk at the Crestwood Library. She is an avid reader with a passion for Young Adult literature, historical fiction and fantasy. A Yonkers native, she is currently pursuing an MS in Information and Library Science from the University at Buffalo.
Z is the Branch Manager at the Crestwood Library. She LOVES bats, is a big bat advocate and enjoys cultivating library experiences for patrons of all ages and connecting people with resources and has been doing so for over 30 years.