Bats-1: A team of Boston scientists is in Uvalde 
studying nature's own crop dusters. That's coming up on 
Passport To Texas.


Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife. Every March 
through October millions of Brazilian free-tailed bats call 
Texas home. And it's here where a group of Boston-area 
scientists also converge to study them.


"Been studying for the last 20 years here and actually 
we've just started a recent project that is looking 
that economic and ecological impact of these bats on 
agri-eco systems."


Dr. Tom Kunz is the Director for Ecology and Conservation 
Biology at Boston University. The research, being 
conducted near Uvalde, is designed to determine the dollar 
contribution the species provides to protect crops against 
insect infestation.


"One of the goals is to find what the proportion of insects 
that the bats eat that actually feed on crops. We've recorded 
them feeding over corn and cotton fields so it's pretty clear 
that's one of the things that they are eating but they, along 
the way, eat other insects as well." 


Early indications are that bats, which consume about half 
of their body weight in insects, are worth millions of 
dollars in avoided pesticide use.


"...and the less water gets contaminated, fewer health care 
issues related to pesticide contamination... so there is a 
whole cascade of events that bats contribute to." 


Coming up on tomorrow's show, how does one actually count 
bats?


"Obviously we can't have a little hand tally and count them 
one at a time because they fly any where between 600 to 
1000 bats per second going by." 


For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I'm Joel Block.