Beyond the Belfry

Bats are common in the Shenandoah region, although you have probably never seen one.

BY JEREMIAH KNUPP
PHOTOS BY HOLLY MARCUS

It’s a common animal in Virginia, but most of the state’s homo sapien inhabitants have never seen one. It plays a vital role in the ecosystem, with many benefits to humans, but is misunderstood and even feared, shrouded in a fog of myth, misconception and late-night horror exploitation. The animal we’re talking about is the bat.

There are 13 distinctive species of bats in Virginia, seven of which can be found in the Shenandoah Valley. The most common is the Little Brown bat, a diminutive creature that has a wing span of 10 inches and weighs less than half an ounce and feeds around pasture fields and lakes. Bats make their homes in everything from man-made structures to trees to the caves so common to the mountains of western Virginia.

Popular Programs

Douthat State Park, a nearly 5,000-acre facility near Clifton Forge, has a special relationship with the small winged animals. In 2001, local Boy Scout Christopher Bartley built bat houses for an Eagle Scout project, and the tall narrow “rocket” shaped structures were placed around the park. The bats were quickly incorporated into many of the park’s educational programs. Each summer, there are daily interpretive nature programs, including a “Bat Kapers” event, where children get the facts on the creatures. The program is also provided as an educational outreach that has been popular with local schools.

“The bat program is one of our most requested programs in our educational outreach,” said Beth Hawse, Chief Ranger Interpreter at Douthat.

Bat Myths

Hawse described a few of the bat myths she commonly encounters as she spreads the facts about bats to the public.

• Bats aren’t blind. Despite the pop-culture idiom, all bats have varying degrees of vision in daylight. Some even use their eyes to navigate in flight. Others use echolocation, a form of biological sonar shared with whales and dolphins, where animals generate a sound and then listen for its echo to judge the distance and type of objects ahead.
• Bats aren’t birds. They are mammals, just like you and me, and the only mammals capable of flight (flying squirrels “glide,” if you’re wondering). Their motion in flight is much different than birds; instead of flapping their wings, they grasp and release them like a hand (bat’s scientific name, Chiroptera, comes from the Greek words for “hand wing”). And despite being mammals, bats are not “flying mice.” If you see a bat crawling around the ground, Hawse noted, don’t assume it’s injured and needs your help. Bats can’t just flap their wings and take off like birds. They have to drop into flight from their upside-down hanging positions. The bat will probably find its way to a tree that it can climb to drop into flight.
• All bats aren’t vampire bats. These carnivorous animals are found only in Central and South America. Some bats feed on fruit. All of the bats that are native to Virginia have a diet composed exclusively of insects.
• “We encounter lots of kids that have what we call the ‘Animal Planet’ or ‘Discovery Channel’ syndrome,” Hawse said. “They know about animals from all over the world, but they’re not familiar with what’s in their own backyard.”
• Bats do not carry rabies more often than any other mammal. Hawse noted that less than half of 1 percent of bats carry rabies.
• Bats won’t get stuck in your hair or attack you. If you encounter a bat at dusk, it may swoop toward you, but only because it is eating the insects that are hovering around you.
• “Many children have ‘nature-deficit disorder,’” Hawse said, using the phrase made popular in the book, “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv. “These kids don’t get out in nature enough, so they have unnatural fears like ‘will a bear eat me while we’re hiking?’”

Bat Benefits

Bats provide many benefits to humans, destroying mosquitoes and flies and preying on beetles and caterpillars that damage plants and crops.

“They’re ‘nature’s bug zapper,’” Hawse said, noting that some bats can eat half of their weight, or 600 to 1,000 insects, in a single evening.

Homeowners who are interested in having the creatures around can build their own bat houses. Douthat has a “Roost in Peace” program, where children and adults construct a bat abode using a kit of two-by-four pieces and plywood. Bat houses not only attract the insect eaters to your neighborhood, they can also provide bats an alternative to nesting in other man-made structures, like your attic or chimney. So invite some bats to your backyard. You might have the chance to teach someone else a thing or two about Virginia’s most misunderstood mammal.