Letters from a Young Bat Scientist-No. 3

October 20, 2014

Hi Dr. Tuttle,

How are you? Hope you guys are doing good. Say hi to Mrs. Tuttle for me. Below are the questions for my history project on Leadership & Legacy. Thanks for helping me!

Love,
Alexis 🙂
“Bat Girl”

 

1. What event inspired you to want to protect bats?

2. Was it difficult to get BCI started?

3. What is your favorite bat?

4. Can you please give me a quote for my project about bat conservation?

October 30, 2014

Hi Alexis,

The following are my responses to your questions. Good luck with your project!

1. It wasn’t just one event. It was an accumulation of seeing lots of gray bat colonies being destroyed. I was aware that these bats were harmless and highly beneficial. However public health officials were claiming them to be dangerous carriers of rabies despite the fact that no one had ever gotten rabies from a gray bat, or that getting rabies from any kind of bat was extremely rare. I couldn’t resist explaining this to cave owners, and when they changed from killing to protecting their bats, I was encouraged to do more.

2. Founding Bat Conservation International required hard work. When I founded BCI most people were extremely frightened of bats. Even leading conservation organizations avoided them like the plague, considering them to be too unpopular to be helped. I had to spend huge amounts of time preparing scientific documentation and learning to put claims of disease dangers in perspective. For example, I pointed out that while only two people, on average, die of bat rabies each year in the U.S. 20-30 are killed by dogs. How could we consider bats dangerous and dogs safe, given these facts? In the end the facts about bat values versus risks are so strong that they are easy to defend if we just arm ourselves with the facts. Great success in life can only be achieved by tackling great challenges.

3. I don’t have a favorite bat, though I especially enjoy working with carnivorous species, because they seem to be exceptionally intelligent. But even the tiny woolly bats that I recently worked with in Borneo turned out to be far smarter than I had ever imagined, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them. Check out the video of them bumping me in the nose to gain my attention to feed them (see woolly bat blogs on my web site at merlintuttle.com).

4. Bats provide essential ecological services required to keep our planet healthy. We cannot ignore their plight without risking our own future.

Paula says hi.

Very best wishes,
Merlin

November 4, 2014

Hi Dr. Tuttle,

Thanks so much for answering my bat questions. History fair is in a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes. Science fair is coming up too. 🙂

My history project is called “Batman of BCI” and my science fair project is called “Bat Chat–using echolocation to determine WNS effects.”

Talk to you soon. Tell Mrs. Tuttle hi for me. Have fun and be safe on your next bat trip.

Have a “Bat”tastic Day,
Alexis
“Bat Girl”