Bat Boxes?

[Oddball]

A friend of mine has about 10 poles with gourds for martins to take care of the mosquitos around the yard. Well once at night they go to bed and the mosquitos are out in force. So I suggested making bat boxes and we have looked up plans and we love woodworking projects. My question is, how do the bats find them? Will they stay? Is there anything to help them to find them?

One website we found told what types of bats would most likley to inhabit the boxes and desriptions of them suggested none of the speices inhabit caves.

Just curious on any bat box experinces you have had.

[Cheryl Jones]

Here's some info from BCI on construction to ensure that a box is 'bat friendly.' http://www.batcon.org/index.php/conserv ... ry/42.html

Also this booklet might help
"BCI has developed an information booklet entitled The Bat House Owners Manual, which contains detailed instructions for proper bat house placement, painting, mounting, etc. Manufacturers certified in this program may include this booklet with each bat house sold. Booklets are available in PDF format by contacting bathouses@batcon.org"

Good luck, and let us know how the project goes!

Cheryl

[Cheryl Jones]

More good info from Bat Management Inc
http://www.batmanagement.com/Batcentral/batcentral.html

[catmouse71]

How well do bat-boxes work?
I am thinking of getting one to control the mosquito population were i live.

[ArCaver]

A friend of mine has about 10 poles with gourds for martins to take care of the mosquitos around the yard. Well once at night they go to bed and the mosquitos are out in force. So I suggested making bat boxes and we have looked up plans and we love woodworking projects. My question is, how do the bats find them? Will they stay? Is there anything to help them to find them?

One website we found told what types of bats would most likley to inhabit the boxes and desriptions of them suggested none of the speices inhabit caves.

Just curious on any bat box experinces you have had.

According to the Purple Martin Conservation Association the martins are not the best choice for mosquito control. http://purplemartin.org/main/mgt.html
There is also an excellent field guide to eastern bats authored by Merlin Tuttle and Jim Kennedy that describes the diet of bats by species. It's amazing how few actually eat mosquitoes despite the oft repeated "thousands per night".

[Cheryl Jones]

amazing how few actually eat mosquitoes despite the oft repeated "thousands per night".

Yeah, I was surprised to learn this when doing research for the NSS Bats brochure. The phrase I would see is "mosquito-sized insects," which seems to get repeated as simply "mosquitoes." Also, I bet "mosquito-eating" makes bats more acceptable to people, an more worthy of protection.

[ArCaver]

amazing how few actually eat mosquitoes despite the oft repeated "thousands per night".

Yeah, I was surprised to learn this when doing research for the NSS Bats brochure. The phrase I would see is "mosquito-sized insects," which seems to get repeated as simply "mosquitoes." Also, I bet "mosquito-eating" makes bats more acceptable to people, an more worthy of protection.

I think that's always been the reasoning. I like to give people more credit in their reasoning though. Any animal that reduces the use of agricultural pesticides by eating beetles, moths and leafhoppers is due some credit and protection for its contribution. If the general public only equates bats with mosquito control many people will think the loss of bats can be offset by bringing back DDT.

[ek]

In addition, while the experts on contemporary pesticides should say if this pertains specifically here, many pesticides reduce in effectiveness when they are used more. DDT, while perhaps being a bad example because it is banned in the United States, is one such pesticide--the banning of agricultural DDT use enormously increases the effectiveness of minimalist spraying of DDT to protect homes from malaria. (And if only that were not also made politically untenable in many cases, millions of lives would be saved...)

So if that is so for the pesticides we use in the United States, then bats' contribution in eating non-mosquitoes limits human spraying which in turn increases the effectiveness of spraying against mosquitoes, even if there were no bats that ate any mosquitoes.

Can someone who is knowledgeable about contemporary pesticides address this?