Month: March 2019

Strong Flights from Congress

After a first surge around the 9th of March and a second surge on March 14th, a period of cold weather suppressed flights from Congress for another few days.

But last night, March 20th saw two flight totaling around 720 thousand bats from Congress Avenue Bridge.  This seems to be the summer colony returned for the season. Were the first surges migrants, or our bats returning in stages?  We’d love to know.

We have taken in 34 bats during this spring migration which started around March 8th..

We have had 8 intakes in the last two days, mostly juvenile female free-tails.  This could be the bulk of the summer colony trying to remember where the maternity roost is.

Here’s a video of the first flight of over 700k bats from Congress this spring.
Actually two flights the first small one 16 minutes before sunset and the second larger flight 10 minutes after sunset.

 

Posted on by The Refuge

Taxidermy Bats – Fiona Reid FB thread

This thread is regarding a Canadian store, but the disgust applies to any store selling taxidermied bats.

Fiona Reid   I was at Guelph mall today Christmas shopping. I went into Green Earth Store and was horrified and disgusted to see these framed stuffed bats on sale. I asked for the manager and told them that this was unacceptable. She responded that the animals were “farmed” and only ones that died a natural death were preserved. They say they are supporting conservation by farming endangered species. One of the bats is a horseshoe bat. The other two are Javan Pipistrelles. These animals cannot be “farmed” and this is hogwash. In addition to bats they had numerous butterflies and other insects. I hope some of you will take the time to join me in writing to Green Earth to question this practice and the whole concept of promoting the framing and selling of animals. I couldn’t actually find these specimens on their website but here is a link https://www.greenearthstores.com/?p=product_line_list.

David Burg   …. about as appealing as stuffed heads of lions or other hunting trophies.

Ian Wright  Is there a regulatory agency to report this to? In the US I suppose this would be fish and wildlife/APHIS. Not sure which wildlife trafficking or import laws are applicable in Canada but I would assume these would have to be accompanied by verified import and sale permits (and least the vertebrates). Might be worth pursuing to get a raid/visit scheduled. At the least this should be fine-able…

Mike Warner  We have spent years trying to something about the sale of preserved bats. The sad thing is there is nothing illegal about it in US or Canada as the bats are not endangered. There have been articles about this in Newsweek and one other magazine. The importers lie to the customers (stores) and tell them that they are raised for the purpose. This is of course ridiculous. There is no way a company would spend a year raising a bat to breed one pup and sell the bat for $20-$30. but the stores do not know any better and believe the importer. All you can do is let all of your friends know and boycott the stores that sell them.

Joseph D’Angeli    Fiona we’ve been trying to stop this at the source and that means stop the importation of these carcasses and corpses and these poached murdered animals from coming into our country.
https://www.change.org/…/ebay-stop-the-killing-of-bats… 

Helen Pettingill I will be sure to write to them. Shame!

Joseph D’Angeli Mike Warner, I think if we contact the centers of Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia and plead our case and also tell the people that fish and wildlife at all the New York and New Jersey ports and the main ports in the United States where these animals are coming in from that there is potentially the opportunity for the spread of disease and that this gross misconduct has been overlooked for far too long. They are reasonable people and if you like I can start the letter and we’ll see if we can get everybody who signed my petition as well as the other petitions to sign I think we can get this stopped from at least coming into this country we’re this bizarre Practice still occurs

Margarethe Brummermann I was surprised to see a local Tucson beetle seller also offering framed bats at his booth in a scab show next to the 4th avenue street fair in Tucson this December. Scab shows are shoes that attach themselves to the big fairs that do all the promotions but they are not part of the big shows. So the organizers have no control over what those side shows offer. I was pretty disgusted

Cynthia Myers They’re selling dead bats at MALLS NOW? Wow, nothing green about murdering vulnerable mammals for home knick knacks.

Cynthia Myers What about a public shaming?
https://www.facebook.com/greenearthstores/

Dale Herter Javan pipistrelles? I can assure you they’re not being farmed, given the loss of bird species to the cage bird trade on that island. How ridiculous. Truly disgusting.

Roberto Amos Gonzalez Noguera Es terrible la ambición quiza mucho mas que la ignorancia..
A donde vamos a llegar con este tipo de mentalidad????

Leon Marais Shocking. I’ve seen butterflies displayed as such for sale in shops, but never bats. Who actually buys them???

Fiona Reid Apparently there is a market amongst goths and the like.

Bill Schutt Sounds like the place should be called Scorched Earth Store. Burton Lim can we put a letter together explaining why these merchants should not be selling this type of material?

Mike Warner Here is the well researched article to which we referred. https://www.newsweek.com/thousands-bats-slaughtered…

Laura Weihs Perhaps with the backlash they may want to consider selling prints of these creatures instead and donating a portion to an appropriate organization.

Kimberly Riddle Lanka Fiona, thank you for alerting us to this horrific trend. Have you shared this with the Bat and Butterfly groups on fb? Animal Rights groups would likely write and act as well.

Rodrigo A. Medellin And we are working with our friends in Indonesia and Malaysia to follow through and consider if I should get CITES involved in this

Jenella Loye I just heard back from a message from the green earth store on Facebook and they are totally duped – they really have a party line that these are colonized bats. Please keep sharing this information and go after them

Merlin Tuttle I wish I had a magic answer, but I don’t. There likely will be a strong market for as long as people fear bats, a prime reason why I’ve been hitting so hard at virologists who are raising literally billions of dollars in grant money by scaring people (https://www.merlintuttle.org/…/fear-of-bats-and-its…/) about extremely rare, speculated-to-be-bat-borne diseases (https://www.merlintuttle.org/…/exaggerated-disease…/). Until more people like bats, these problems will continue to prove extremely difficult to resolve.

Legal actions likely will change only the source locations or species collected. Our Fish and Wildlife Service tends to look the other way until a species is rare enough to be listed as endangered, a bit late! The only way I can think of to slow traffic is to try to convince the public to quit purchasing anything, not just bats, from companies selling bats. The problem likely will be hard for us to reach, given that this appears to be largely a niche market, types we are least likely to influence.

Last I knew, even U.S. biological supply companies were a problem, though they would be easier to intimidate. When I was in graduate school the Carolina Biological Supply offered me a dollar appeals for, if I’m remembering correctly, up to 10,000! And only a few years ago we got a vendor arrested for selling free-tailed bats from Texas.

This is a problem that has been going on for as long as I can remember. Varied people and organizations from the U.S. and U.K. have attempted to stop it to no avail. I was extensively quoted in Newsweek on this issue in Newsweek last year, http://www.newsweek.com/thousands-bats-slaughtered….

We fully encourage people to write to the company to politely express opinions. The goal is not to make people feel bad or upset them but rather to win people over as bat lovers that will protect them

Jenella Loye Kristin Jonasson Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean they can’t be shamed into stop being their actions! The population of the world with Australia citizens in this lead stop the shipping of live animals for slaughter in the Middle East for years and years and years by public outcry. Sadly that is no longer the case but it was an amazing effort and it did work for a long time

Julie Foster Some Goths like taxidermy animals for the creepy factor. I prefer replicas. Nothing gets killed that way.

Joe Chun-Chia Huang Hi Fiona, many thanks for posting this. I am currently working with Drs Tigga Kingston (BSG cochair), Paul Racey and several colleagues in tracking the global tradings of bat souvenirs. Do you mind I contact you for some further information of the bats you saw?

Aza Derman Fiona Reid: The Manager may be repeating what s/he is told. I work in a store that sells some similar things. We know our butterflies are farmed, and we were told the same was true of our bats and some other animals. Some of us had to do some serious research to figure out that wasn’t true for the bats and some of the other species. But some salespeople don’t even research.

Melissa Donnelly Stephanie education is really all you can do. Particularly for people buying from North America or Europe. A lot of these vendors slap on “ethically sourced” when in reality it isn’t. Just need to explain to people how buying something like that contributes to poaching.

Stephanie Garvin There’s a big market here in Indonesia for bats, with orders going out predominantly to domestic locations. Apparently there is a belief that they can function as a treatment for epilepsy

Felix Dyvoux Keko When do we buy schelacked humans?!

Kailey Ryan I have a few taxidermy pieces all from one artist who proves the source and that it’s ethical for all her pieces. She gets her butterflies from an animal reserve one the natural lifespan is over and the birds and animals are all older birds that die naturally, in their own time. Truly ethical taxidermy is fine, anything else is barbaric and unjust. Animals should not be bred for our use in any way shape or form.

Cynthia Myers The bats used for these commercial taxidermy sales have not been bred for this, but have been removed from the wild and killed. I also have a few taxidermy specimens of bats that we use for educational outreach events, but these were injured bats that we got into care and were just unable to save. I tried to save them, and mourned their passing. Every one. To think of people raiding maternity colonies or hibernation sites to kill perfectly healthy bats to hang on the wall in their living room is just sickening. 🙁

Fiona Reid They are not farming them. Much worse, they are catching wild animals and killing them for souvenirs. I would only keep the skull of an animal I found dead.

Fiona Reid I think we have to accept that we have no right to criticize the appalling trade of rhino horn and pangolin scales in Asia when our own countries are selling trinkets of bats and other creatures from distant lands. Many of these bats could be endangered, but the data isn’t there, so saying the species isn’t endangered is misleading. Poaching makes me sick and this is the same.

Joe Szewczak So then, nothing keeping me from farm raising kittens and puppies to stuff and sell in shadow boxes?

Fiona Reid Nothing at all so long as they die of natural causes while still retaining pristine kittenish looks.

Alasdair Grant There is a grey line here. I do not want to encourage a market of specimens like these, but I can understand the need for specimens for research and education. These specimens in museums are available for examination by genuine researchers so that we can learn about their anatomy and to effectively treat animals and also for training for ID purposes but for a commercial market as decorative ornaments this is something that I find disturbing as that is not for educational or research purposes.

Fiona Reid There are huge differences between scientific collections and this grotesque pointless killing.

Paula T Webb Alasdair Grant there is no more need for science experiments people.

Jude Hirstwood But some researchers empty entire roosts which is unacceptable

Jesús Montero Hi Fiona Reid I found the product in their web https://www.greenearthstores.com/?p=pSingle&sku=00213897089 I already wrote to the store complaining about such disgusting practice.

Cynthia Myers That’s disgusting. If you count the inventory of these murdered bats at all their stores, it’s almost 50. Awful… :’-(

Joe Szewczak Thanks for the link. I sent them a message echoing my dislike:

Elisabeth Rothschild OMG, I just looked at Etsy and it is appalling. Even worse. Time for a campaign. I think i will write to the NY Times.

Daniela Hamidovic Couple of years ago I saw some being sold in Croatia. By guy who is buying all stuff in Thailand and SE Asia. Croatian guy. Now…this town is at the entrance to Krka National Park with almost million visitors per year. I had a small chat with the guy telling him that he might receive negative publicity and bad marks from people that like bats from all over the world. I think he doesn’t sell dry framed bats any more.

Fiona Reid I took a look on Etsy: mythaihome sells numerous dead bats from Thailand. They have sold 1500+ items on Etsy. Also freakshowfollies sells bats, also TaxidermyArt, ButterfliesArtist, Taweesub. Butterflypalace has painted bats for sale. PoeticAlchemyArte has some too. This is huge. I haven’t even checked eBay yet.

Cynthia Myers They’re sold all over Amazon, too.

Daniela Hamidovic And yes Fiona it is huge. You didn’t check the Darknet:)

Daniela Hamidovic I would add to that market, the open markets in northern Africa … selling dried bats or part of their bodies for Arabic magic (black, white or as aphrodisiac) … I personally found it in Marrakesh among spices. Arabic magic is considered in certain circles as one of the most powerful magic in the world.

Allyson Walsh Yes – heard about the use of bats in oils used in female genital mutilation. Trying to get disease people interested. Will follow up on Laws in Uk / London fruit bat issue.

Fiona Reid Good to know. People really do suck. Thx Ally

Fiona Reid The sad part is that it is not illegal to sell this stuff in North America. So long as it isn’t CITES listed.

Karen H Sharples Fiona Reid we still have the power to influence: boycott these places and be certain that you tell them why.

Fiona Reid HI everyone – I hope you see this comment if you commented. I have followed up on this by writing to CITES Canada and Wildlife Enforcement Directorate Canada, explaining that these bats are misidentified and therefore CITES-listed species could be taken. I would like to find people in the US who can send out similar letters there – the market is bigger – huge on EBay and Amazon.com, also in Europe. If you are willing to spend a few minutes sending in letters I would be very happy to give you my letter to base yours on. Please pm me. I haven’t heard back from Green (Scorched) Earth Stores, but plan to visit their HQ in Feb. Thanks!

Fiona Reid For those of you following up, thanks Dina Dechmann, JoEllen Arnold, Natrgrl Deb, I just heard back from CITES Canada, their point being that none of these bats are listed by CITES. CITES lists only (w. one exception) pteropids, which is very limited and unfortunate. So it might be better to try to find other listing agents (IUCN, etc) and direct mail to them? Anyway the more mud we can stir, the better.

Fiona Reid The ones from Green earth are said to be “farmed” and come from Indonesia, where the laws are pretty lax. If you look on Etsy and EBay, there are suppliers in Thailand and other places, so I am sure those ones are taken from the wild. There are now numerous Painted Bats (from Thailand and elsewhere) that are sold and are very unlikely to have been used in animal testing, as they would be hard to maintain in captivity.

Nonie Celeste https://books.google.com/books?id=cSDgBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA27…

Jean-Michel Maes Check the CITES reports and you will see the huge of the business of small animals for frames and collections…

 

Posted on , updated on by The Refuge

Huntsville Cotton Warehouse eviction

Despite almost ten years of reasoning, bargaining, scheming, and collective effort from many agencies and NGOs, the Huntsville bat colony apparently will be evicted. At this time, TDCJ appears to be unwilling to accomplish this in a 3-4-year reasonable exclusion process.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has unfortunately never considered leaving the former cotton warehouse that housed the bats as a natural roost and tourist attraction. The latest meeting between our working group and the TDCJ revealed that TDCJ’s consulting engineer had condemned the warehouse, and signaled their unwavering intent to eventually demolish the structure.

Failure to repair broken windows and replace missing doors has allowed the bats to colonize this magnificent structure and over the years the colony has grown to around 750,000 bats at it’s summertime peak. How sad to see a beautiful example of 1930’s Art Deco architecture fall into disrepair.  Areas of the warehouse have beautifully detailed brickwork in walls and columns and were obviously built with great care and pride. The building still seems bombproof in spite of the trees that have taken root on the roof over the last few years.  We feel that other consulting engineers may have a different opinion of the sturdiness of the structure, and we would have loved to see it leased by the Nature Conservancy or another such group to continue to house the bat colony that has thrived in its confines.

Back in 2011, a plan was in the works to use FEMA funds to address Huntsville’s flooding problems by removing the underground storm drains and creating hiking trails and ponds along the creek flowing near the warehouse. This was envisioned as a riparian corridor connecting Sam Houston State University to a city park on the northwest side as it passed through downtown (from bottom right to top left in image below) .  Retention ponds along the creek, that would slow and sink the surface flow, were seen as places for idyllic repose, with benches to allow enjoyment of the ponds and attracted waterfowl.  Thoughts arose that mitigation roosts could be placed along the creek at various locations as tourist attractions, where locals and visitors could enjoy the spectacle of nightly bat flights, much as they do today as they gather outside the Walls Unit to watch nightly flights in the summertime.
Here’s what we had in mind back at that time.

Faced with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s ruling that the warehouse bats are a protected natural resource (because the roost is in an unoccupied/abandoned building),  TDCJ agreed to install community bat houses, and to have them built by shop classes designed to give the inmates construction skills they can use upon release. We liked that idea, and were glad the inmate students would gain construction experience. However, for some reason, the roosts were built using an untested combination of designs, and with substandard roost modules and other issues ensuring a short life of the structures, and questionable occupation by bats.

The design was never vetted by TPWD’s working group (consisting of TPWD, Austin Bat Refuge, BCI and Sam Houston State University), nor was the amount of mitigation roost space provided by these houses.  Our working group was allowed to inspect the first house as it was being constructed at the Woodville unit of the prison system.  Our detailed critiques of the design, and requests for modification, were not incorporated by the shop classes and the subsequent three bat houses were completed in exactly the same fashion as the first one. The design was put into production and the result was four substandard bat roosts.
Common practice is that if there is no occupation of mitigation roosts in the first two years, then analysis should be performed  to determine possible reasons why and changes made to the design prior to constructing more of the very same design. Data loggers we placed throughout the warehouse and the original bat boxes showed that conditions were nowhere near close enough to entice the bats to accept the mitigation roosts as an acceptable alternative.

Prison officials also overestimated the number of bats each bat house might hold, and did not consult the working group about estimating the size of the growing colony. The working group had always considered that a much larger number of community bat houses would be required as mitigation for the warehouse colony. Our original idea for the parking lot roosts looked something like this, potentially housing around 400,000 bats:

OR, some combination of double and single bat condos that would accomodate 550k or more bats:

A meeting of the working group with TDCJ on Nov 13th included the presence of Bat Conservation International in the group for the first time since June 2017, which we felt added even more professional credibility to our group.  At the meeting, we expressed the working group’s concerns regarding the bat houses constructed by TDCJ and communicated our conclusion that the bat houses were of an unproven design, not well constructed, and inadequate in size to house the colony. We communicated our opinion that, based on our inspections, they do not have enough capacity to hold the size of the colony even as it was in 2011, not to mention the increase of the colony size in recent years.

Bullet points of the meeting:

  • TDCJ declared their intention to work with the group and go slowly with any exclusion process, with any major work being deferred until next winter.
  • SHSU suggested allowing TDCJ to take advantage of the bats’ winter absence to exclude some of the rooms on the bottom floor.
  • It was agreed that exclusion of a few small rooms on the bottom floor would incentivize some of the colony to explore the as-yet unused bat houses, thereby vetting the design and seeing if they would be accepted and prove adequate.
  • BCI suggested setting up a walk-through to see if bats were present in those bottom-floor back rooms.
  • TDCJ was tasked with mapping the warehouse in order to develop an exclusion plan.
  • TDCJ stated they absolutely would not pay for  professional exclusion companies to perform or consult on the work.
  • ABR volunteered to attempt to line up no cost professional exclusion consultation, to start once the maps were made available.
    • Our consultant agreed to work gratis and was awaiting the floorplan of the warehouse to professionally advise on the process.

On March 5th, we were notified that:

  • TPWD, SHSU, and BCI had performed a walk-through of the warehouse and found approximately 3500 bats in the upper floor area.
  • Apparent miscommunication between TDCJ and TPWD unfortunately resulted in our working group unable to be present for a warehouse “mapping” visit.
  • Following their own inspections on Feb 8th and Feb 11th, TDCJ unilaterally mapped the warehouse and drew up their own exclusion plan, with no input from our professionals. They barricaded (did not exclude) the entire first floor and most of the second floor, reducing the available roosting area by perhaps 80%, and possibly trapping any bats hiding in those areas.
  • Warehouse mapping was submitted to TPWD on Feb 11th, but was impossible to vet without the floorplans.
  • During their unlilateral process, TDCJ closed the traditional entry/exit point, a loading door on the east side of the warehouse, the one bats had been using for decades. They opened up small windows on the south side that never previously connected to the main roosting areas.
  • TDCJ said that  “Our failure to act on this would allow the returning colony to have access to the entire warehouse, making it virtually impossible to execute a proper plan of exclusion. The area that the bats are confined to is approximately 4,844 square feet of usable space. Of the bats that are currently in domicile, they only take up a small fraction of existing usable space.  At this time we are poised to remain at ease until the migratory return flight and subsequent settling period of the main colony. Upon discovery of return and settlement, we will then expect the execution of the exclusion plan to begin.”

This seems to indicate that they plan to exclude bats at the most vulnerable time for this colony–maternity season–the absolute worst possible time for exclusion activity.

TDCJ and our working group had agreed that only about 10% of the building be excluded in the winter of 2018-19, and that incremental exclusion would slowly incentivize the bats to adjust by using the bat roosts provided by TDCJ.  If it was determined that the bat houses functioned properly and were of sufficient capacity, the exclusion would take place the following winter.

Return of the bats, one week from our notification of these events, to vastly modified conditions and unproven mitigation roosts, will certainly lead to mass mortality (from exposure and predation) and increased incidence of bats in buildings in the area around the warehouse.

We hope they will open the roost entrance and used for over a decade by these bats and restore the roost to pre-barrier conditions, so that a measured, responsible solution can be achieved.

Proposed mitigation roost design

Critiques of TDCJ design that were not implemented

Posted on , updated on by The Refuge

Austin bat lovers!! Buy a coffee, save a bat!

How can enjoying a lavender vanilla latte help our local Austin bats? Hankering for a chai almond milk latte or a double espresso and a cinnamon muffin? Revival Coffee on E 7th supports three local charities every quarter. When you purchase anything at the counter from a coffee drink to a beer to a pastry, they give you a little ticket. You then can choose a charity jar to which you can add your ticket. This quarter Austin Bat Refuge is offered as one of the local charities. At the end of the quarter, the charity with the most tickets receives a percentage donation from Revival coffee. What an awesome way to advocate for Austin’s many organizations and what an easy way for you to go down, grab a delicious drink and support Austin’s bats and the amazing people that dedicate themselves to educating the community about how incredible and important bats are to the world!

Sometimes it is the simplest things that can help bats in your community!

Revival Coffee, 1405 E 7th

https://www.revivaltexas.com/

Posted on by The Refuge