Project to help save gray bats
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But contrary to popular belief, bats are far more helpful than they are harmful ? if for no other reason than their appetite for mosquitoes. Bats often consume their body weight in flying insects every night.
The Tennessee Nature Conservancy has recently completed a large-scale project to help preserve a species of bat that?s prevalent in Hubbard?s Cave located in the Irving College area.
The Nature Conservancy spearheaded an effort to replace a 30-foot steel gate inside Hubbard?s Cave to help protect the over half a million gray bats that are estimated to hibernate there each year. The gate allows the bats to fly in, but keeps people out.
?Bats are like snakes. People don?t like them,? said Nature Con-servancy representative Cory Holliday. ?And that cave is so isolated, so far from the road, people can go down there and do what they want.?
Gina Hancock with the Nature Conser-vancy said some people deliberately injure or kill the bats, sometimes by dousing them with kerosene and setting them ablaze.
The gate makes the cave a safe haven for the gray bats, which hibernate in Hubbard?s Cave for its constant 45 to 46 degree temperature.
The cool air allows the bats to lower their metabolic processes such as heart rate and respiration during hibernation.
However, replacing a 30-foot steel gate that?s inside a cave deep in the wilderness was no easy task. The Nature Conservancy used the services of a local company, Perry?s Paving, to do much of the work.
?If it wasn?t for the Perry family, Tex and his son Jason, this project wouldn?t have gotten done,? said Holliday. ?Our biggest challenge was that the road was impassable. They pulled huge boulders out of the road and graveled it. Plus they got a huge crane up there to take out the old gate. They were the keystone to this whole project.?
Jason Perry said he rented a crane for the two-week project and used it to remove over 8 tons of steel. He said he had to be harnessed with safety ropes when he climbed to the top of the old gate to use a torch to cut it out.
?It was a big undertaking,? said Jason, who has completed seven contracts with the Nature Conservancy and has been fabricating metal since he was 16. ?It?s a worthwhile project because it helps protect an endangered species of wildlife. And the gate also keeps people from getting in there and tearing stuff up.?
Roy Powers, the gate engineer, said the horizontal slats that make up the gate are placed 5-3/4 inches apart, allowing the bats enough room to spread their wings and fly in and out of the cave. The design gives the bats easier access than the original gate built over the south entrance to the cave in 1985, Powers said.
Since the first gate was built, the population of gray bats in Hubbard?s Cave has increased from fewer than 100,000 to more than 520,000, said Nature Conservancy representative Gabi Call.
Since the 1960s, Hubbard’s Cave has been monitored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because of the large population of gray bats.
After the drastic drop in the gray bat population that culminated in the endangered designation in 1976, the Nature Conservancy bought the cave from a local family in the 1980s to protect the bats.
Nature Conservancy officials said Hubbard’s Cave is not the only gray bat cave in the area, but the large population it houses makes it critical to the survival of the species.
Hubbard’s Cave has been home to five bat species, including the endangered gray and Indiana bats. Dave Pelren, a biologist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said Indiana bats have not been seen in the cave for several years.
Call said that with the diminishing populations of Indiana bats, there is concern that the species will go extinct in the near future.
“Sometimes I wake up and have a sinking feeling that (the Indiana bat) is one we’re not going to be able to save,” she said.
Chattanooga Times Free Press writer Kelli Gauthier contributed to this report.
Bat facts
? There are only three species of ?vampire bats? ? bats that live off the blood of animals. None live in the United States.
? Bats can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour, and often consume their body weight in insects every night.
? Forty different species of bats live in the U.S. and more than half are in severe decline or listed as endangered.
? Most bats have only one pup a year, making them vulnerable to extinction.
? Bats can live to be more than 30 years old.
? The world?s smallest bat is the Bumble Bee Bat of Thailand, which is smaller than a thumbnail and weighs less than a penny.