UNITED KINGDOM: Bat hospital raises awareness of bats ahead of European Bat Weekend

Record ID: 1530523

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Bat hospital raises awareness of bats ahead of European Bat Weekend
  • Date: 30th August 2008
  • Summary: (L!WE) NEAR THE VILLAGE OF FOREST ROW, SUSSEX, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (AUGUST 27, 2008) (REUTERS) CLARK WITH BAT IN HAND BAT'S FACE BEING CLEANED
  • Embargoed: 14th September 2008 18:42
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Nature / Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVAECF8KRWJFFFM4QW75Q342BTAS
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Bats might be protected in Britain but the nocturnal animals still face risks.
    With over a hundred bat groups throughout the country, protective legislation and a Conservation Trust that carries out monitoring research, British bats should be thriving. But while numbers have increased in recent years, bat populations still face challenges.
    History dictates that bats suffer from a bad reputation but they're much maligned according to experts. The presence of these nocturnal winged mammals can be one of the best indicators of the health of our environment; and we can help them thrive by turning our gardens into bat havens.
    Jenny Clark runs a bat hospital in Sussex, southern England and recommends bat boxes and a pond to encourage insects and give bats somewhere to drink.
    ''Bats in this country live on insects. Where you have insects you have healthy water and healthy countryside. So they are a very important indicator of the health of the countryside,'' Clark said.
    Another way to help bats is to keep them safe from cats, who tend to make a sport out of flicking them over with their paws while they feed on insects or swoop down to drink from a water supply. Clark says the majority of injuries she sees are fractures or tears due to bats being tossed by curious felines. She provides temporary shoe box homes for the victims, nursing them back to health until they're ready to retry their flying skills.
    But not all recover. Those who don't, transfer to the hospital's long-stay wing. Some of the bats in this zone have lost their ability or nerve to fly.
    Clark has a noctule who was so traumatised she hasn't flown for years -- but that does not stop her getting out and about. Clark's a committed educationalist and spends a great deal of time visiting schools and agricultural shows and events with her bats. She wants both children and adults to become more familiar with the nocturnal creatures as she firmly believes that increased understanding of their needs and problems will enable people to help them more.
    Over the years, Clark says she's noticed a change in attitude for the better.
    ''Instead of people coming up and saying, 'How do I get rid of them? Who's going to come and take them away?' People are coming up to me at the shows where I show my bats saying, 'We have bats. We see the shadows but we don't know what they are.'' Legislation has kept a pace with this. Bats have been protected in Britain for over 25 years but they still face risks. Recent evidence suggests drops in air pressure caused by wind turbines pose a threat as does climate change. Clark believes recent mild winters have affected the hibernation patterns of some species.
    ''A bat waking up from hibernation will use a week's hibernation fat.
    There aren't enough insects to replace what he's lost,'' says Clark.
    But conservationists like Clark remain positive. Retaining a belief that increased understanding and monitoring such as that carried out by the country's Bat Conservation Trust is the way forward.
    Thousands of enthusiasts will be doing that over the next few days.
    Giving their bat knowledge a bit of a boost whilst celebrating European Bat Weekend, all in an effort to get a little closer to these nighttime winged visitors.
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