Me again - sorry for two replies.
I have just verified with the family here in Lebanon that none of them heard about this so I have contacted the LBC network, which is the largest news network in Lebanon, and the most watched by Lebanese people not only here but around the world, with the following:
"Hi. I don't know if you covered this when it happened:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Enviro ... z1kgelTY3d but if you missed it, this would be a great thing to tell people about and use it to teach the people of Lebanon how valuable your bats are and why not to kill them.
I travel here every year for at least one month with my husband to visit our family and I always enjoy looking at all the beautiful wild life, plants and flowers, especially in the Mont Lebanon region. I would love to see the people here take a more active role in preserving the beauty and diverse wildlife that is and makes Lebanon an even better country and place to visit. Without your bats, like your honey bees, all your plants, all your flowers, your vineyards and your fruit trees will die off and cease to exist. They are an absolute necessity to your food as well as your beauty. The fruit bats like the ones that were killed pollinate your fruit trees, especially your figs and pomegranates and you need them. Your smaller bats eat an amazing number of insects, especially mosquitoes every night. One bat will eat it's own weight in insects every evening.
Too many Lebanese are still afraid and misinformed about bats and how necessary they are. They think they are bad omens, carry rabies and all sorts of bad things, but none of this is true. For more information on bats, please visit Bat Conservation International at
http://www.batcon.org/ - there you will find a lot of great information about bats around the world and what they do for us.
Please inform the Lebanese people so they will stop killing the bats here. It is a very sad thing when humans kill our of fear or misinformation.
One more thing about bats - they mate for life. If you kill one, its mate will be alone in most species and never claim another mate. They are the only flying mammal in the world and do not attack humans, especially the species we have in Lebanon.
Thank you for your time and my apologies if you have already covered this information. I hope I have provided you with some newsworthy items and a way to help all our beautiful country of Lebanon. "
There is a big chance they will do a news story on this now. They did not in the past according to what I could find in their records. If they cover this, and they love this kind of story since it doesn't happen a whole lot over here, so I bet they will, most of the country will see it and hopefully it will help. It is the best thing I could do for the bats here and I hope it does the trick. From what I've been told by the family here, more and more people are becoming aware of the wildlife here, especially the bats, and they still think they are "bad omens" of all things. They are very superstitious. Others still believe they carry rabies of course.
Cross your fingers this does the trick and lets the bats here live more peacefully. Lebanon is not a bad country and most of the people here do care but have no idea what to do or how to do it and no idea of where to find the information, so maybe this will help them. There are several new groups forming every day here to protect and preserve the wildlife and ecology of the country and they will jump on this too if they know about it and hear it from a source they trust.
Thank you
Kat