Bilbo's Bat, "Belle" Geocoin

This coin is related to the Leave No Trace principle of "Respect Wildlife" and also makes us aware of the great Battle of the Bats - the disease White Nose Syndrome - a very sad story happening right now!

Bats are critical to the environment and through unfortunate superstitions, to this day most of humanity fears them and have the concept that the proper fate for bats is extermination. Yet a bat will typically eat 15-20 times its weight in insects at night - and it can be tons of mosquitos for that matter.  TONS.  Think about it - if you have a bat roost of 100,000 bats, the reason you don't get mosquitos like you could, is all that feasting.  Even the 300 in your attic (they like the really hot small spaces due to rising heat from the house and the sun against your roof),  together with all the other attics in your town - which can easily mean 300,000(+) - those bats are getting those bugs, big time!!!  The other critical aspect is that bats save farmers millions of dollars in expensive pesticides.  Bats really are our friends!

Humans have stupidly (of course, we say "How could we have known...?") built most of their cities and towns and other infrastructure worldwide right into pre-existing bat habitat!!!  If it's bothersome to you (the bat droppings - guano - made up of all those bugs) does kind of smell, no need to have a pest controller kill the colony - it's so easy to remove a bat colony from your attic - just watch where they fly out.  Now during May and June, they have pups but those little ones quickly get flight status so by mid-summer it's safe to fix the situation.  Just block their access and it causes them to find an alternate site.

So we malign the poor bat, who happens to be magificently helping us - and it's done silently and massively each night.  To respect bats is to preserve them and their habitat!!!

Meanwhile, an ecologically devastating disease, White Nose Syndrome is ravaging bat populations in 26 southern and eastern states and 5 Canadian provinces. Since 2006 when it was first detected at Howe Caverns in New York state, the disease has killed at least 8 million bats (and probably many more).  It continues to spread and there is no known cure.  At this writing it is in western Arkansas, threatening Oklahoma and north Texas (and therefore New Mexico where Bilbo's Bat, "Belle," was launched).

What can you do to help?  Keep informed by checking here often and passing this information on, share with teachers and organizations - whatever you can think of to keep people aware:  http://whitenosesyndrome.org/resources