Passport to Texas

A Hygieostatic Bat Roost located off Farm to Market Road 473 east of Comfort, Texas, United States was built in 1918. The roost was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1981 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 28, 1983.

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This is Passport to Texas

Farmers know how costly it can be to spray crops with insecticides to prevent pest damage. What some may not know is…bats can be partners in pest eradication.

The Mexican free tail bat, in particular, is really valuable for agricultural purposes.

Meg Goodman is a former Parks and Wildlife’s bat biologist.

Current research has shows that these bats can save farmers up to two sprays of pesticides per year because of all the insect pests that they’re eating, like the corn earworm moth and the cotton boll worm moth, among other crop pest species.

In the early 20th century, San Antonio physician Charles A. Campbell designed and tested artificial roosts to attract bats to eat mosquitoes blamed for the spread of malaria. Eventually Campbell developed a bat tower, which he installed at Mitchell Lake, south of the city, which attracted hundreds of thousands of the flying mammals. The spectacle of the bats’ nightly emergence drew spectators in the 1920s…as it does today, wherever bats roost.

Their numbers and nightly emergences bring in a lot of tourist dollars to a lot of smaller communities—and big communities like Austin… It’s one of our top tourist destinations. But they do provide a lot of tourist dollars through nature tourism through a lot of our smaller communities throughout the state.

Learn how to attract bats at passporttotexas.org. That’s our show…we receive support from the Wildlife Restoration program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Bats emerge from their roost at Kickapoo Cavern State Park

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This is Passport to Texas

Despite improved public relations, people remain—if not terrified—then at least apprehensive of bats.

A lot of people fear bats because of a lot of myths and superstitions associated with them.

Meg Goodman, former Parks and Wildlife’s bat biologist, says bats will not purposely entangle themselves in your hair, nor will they attempt to suck your blood.

We do a lot of work to get the message across that bats are actually very, very beneficial for us, and they’re very gentle creatures and very interesting to learn about and learn from.

With education, more people are beginning to appreciate bats than fear them. In fact, we’ve even started looking forward to seeing certain bats—such as Mexican free-tails—that winter in Mexico and summer in Texas.

The Mexican free-tailed bat is probably one of our most common bats in the state, and people know it because it lives in such large numbers in places such as bridges and caves and makes nightly emergences that many people can come out and watch.

Tomorrow: the benefits of bats.

The Mexican free-tailed bat, in particular, is really valuable for agricultural purposes.

That’s our show for today… we receive support from the Wildlife Restoration Program…working to restore wildlife habitat in Texas…we record our series at the Production Block Studios in Austin…Joel Block engineers our program…

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Bats emerging from Bracken Cave.

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This is Passport to Texas

Texas is home to 33 of the world’s more than 13-hundred bat species. Bats devour tons of agricultural insect pests, pollinate crops and native plants, and bring tourists to Texas.

We have the largest congregations of bats in the entire world. People travel all over the world to see Bracken Bat Cave, Old Tunnel State Park, Congress Street Bridge. It’s a wildlife phenomenon

But Jonah Evans, Texas Parks and Wildlife mammologist, says Texas bats face a serious threat: White Nose Syndrome, a fungal disease fatal to hibernating bats, discovered 10 years ago in the Northeast.

It’s right at our border. And during that time, it has killed an estimated 6-million bats. Which, in some states, amounts to a very high percentage of all the bats in their states.

Evans and other bat conservators discuss the problem of white nose syndrome next week on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS.

At this point, all we can do is monitor closely, learn what we can, and be prepared if an opportunity to apply some kind of treatment arises. There is currently no way to stop the spread of White Nose Syndrome. However, there are many smart people working really hard on trying to find ways of doing just that.

Watch this highly informative segment on Bat Monitoring in Texas on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series on PBS the week of January 1, 2017. Check your local listings.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Checking caves for White Nose Syndrome, Photo © Mylea Bayless, Bat Conservation International, www.batcon.org

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This is Passport to Texas

White nose syndrome is a fungal disease that attacks hibernating bats.

So, the way that white nose hurts them and is fatal to them is by irritating their skin while they’re hibernating.

Jonah Evans is a mammologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife. A skin irritation doesn’t sound fatal, but expending energy reserves is.

Hibernation for a bat is a very narrow budget of energy that they’re trying to make last for many months. And the process of waking up, cleaning off your wings, and fidgeting around a little bit, burns off critical energy—and the result is starvation. They’re just not able to make it through hibernation.

It seems not all bats are affected by White Nose Syndrome even if infected.

If a bat does not hibernate, it means that bat is active all winter long. Some of those stay here in the southern part of the state, but other ones migrate down to Mexico and Central America. And even if those bats get the disease, because they’re active year round, there’s hope that they’ll be constantly replenishing their calories and they won’t perish because of the disease.

Mexican free-tailed bats—the ones in the big caves in Texas—are migratory. Currently, Texas is White Nose Syndrome free. Yet, as a priority species researchers are doing what they can to understand the issue and to develop a management plan should it come to our state.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

White Nose Syndrome, Photo: USFWS

Bat Killing Disease Flanking Texas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Discovered 10 years ago in upstate New York, white nose syndrome—a fungal disease that kills hibernating bats—traveled a predictable path.

For the previous 10 years it has spread incrementally. From New York State to the neighboring states; one step at a time in a very predictable way. And then, all of a sudden to have it show up in Washington State was out of sequence.

Jonah Evans is a mammologist with TPW. This year’s discovery in Washington State is the first recorded occurrence of WNS in western North America. Prior to that, researchers predicted the disease would eventually reach the western states by way of the Texas Panhandle.

In some ways I like to think of it as the enemy has flanked us. We had clear battle lines drawn. We knew which direction the enemy was advancing. And all of a sudden, it’s coming from behind us as well. It’s definitely not encouraging. It’s actually quite alarming in the bat and white nose research communities.

While researchers do not know for sure how the disease got to Washington, many suspect it may have been transported by people. So, prevention starts with cavers.

Especially people who are frequent cavers who might go from one spot to another and then travel to another state, and go into multiple caves. We’re really encouraging caving communities and other people going into caves to be really cautious and to use decontamination whenever they can.

Find a link to decontamination protocols at passporttotexas.org.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.