America's bats are an essential part of a healthy environment. Nevertheless, many bat species are in alarming decline, largely because of unwarranted human fear and persecution and the loss of natural roosts. You can help by putting up a bat house. You'll benefit directly from having fewer yard pests and will enjoy learning about bats and sharing your knowledge with friends and neighbors. Few efforts on behalf of wildlife are more fun or rewarding than helping bats. 32 pp, Paperback. By Merlin D. Tuttle, Mark Kiser, and Selena Kiser.
Updated 2013 edition. The Bat House Builder's Handbook has been the definitive source for bat house information. As primary predators of night-flying insects, bats play a vital role in maintaining the balance of nature. By consuming vast numbers of pests, they rank among humanity's most valuable allies. Just one little brown myotis can catch a thousand or more mosquito-sized insects in an hour, and a colony of 150 big brown bats can catch enough cucumber beetles each summer to prevent egg laying that otherwise could infest local gardens with 33 million rootworms. Cucumber and June beetles, stinkbugs, leafhoppers, and cutworm and corn earworm moths--all well-known pests--are just a few of the many insects consumed by these frequent users of bat houses. In addition, many pests flee areas where they hear bat echolocation sounds. Our immediate goal is to preserve America's most widespread species in sufficient numbers to maintain nature's balance and reduce demands for chemical pesticides. Thanks to a decade of BCI-sponsored bat house research we are now able to accommodate 14 species of North American bats in the bat houses described in this handbook, including threatened and endangered species such as the Indiana myotis and Wagner's bonneted bat. Bat houses are being used from Mexico and the Caribbean to British Columbia and Newfoundland.
Best of all, if you carefully follow instructions, your odds of success exceed 80 percent. Isn't it about time to extend a helping hand in exchange for a healthier neighborhood?. Merlin Tuttle and his colleagues at Bat Conservation International at work. Bats fly the night skies in nearly every part of the world, but they are the least studied of all mammals. As the major predator of night-flying insects, bats eat many pests. Unfortunately bats are facing many problems, including a terrifying new disease. White-nose Syndrome is infecting and killing millions of hibernating bats in North America. But Dr. Tuttle, with the help of his fellow bat scientists are in the trenches--and caves--on the front line of the fight to save their beloved bats. For ages 10+. By Mary Kay Carson with photographs by Tom Uhlman. PB, 80pp.
