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Insect-Devouring Bats Now Welcomed in New York (nytimes.com)
Slashdot reader HughPickens.com shares an article from the New York Times: The town of North Hempstead on Long Island has approved the construction of bat houses in several parks to attract more bats to the area because despite their less-than-desirable reputation, bats possess a remarkable ability to control insects, especially disease-carrying mosquitoes. "Bats can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes per hour," says Judi Bosworth. "That's extraordinary. A pesticide couldn't do that." As mosquito season heats up, bringing with it the threat of the West Nile and Zika viruses, the bats make very welcome neighbors.
[T]he Asian tiger mosquito is found on Long Island and is capable of transmitting Zika in a laboratory setting, and as of October, 490 cases of West Nile and 37 deaths resulting from it have been recorded in New York since 2000. "If you minimize the mosquito population you minimize the possible incidence of the Zika virus," says Larry Schultz. "If you reduce the mosquito population, you make parks more accessible."
"Bats really have been very maligned," says Bosworth -- noting they don't really swoop down on your head and get tangled in your hair.
[T]he Asian tiger mosquito is found on Long Island and is capable of transmitting Zika in a laboratory setting, and as of October, 490 cases of West Nile and 37 deaths resulting from it have been recorded in New York since 2000. "If you minimize the mosquito population you minimize the possible incidence of the Zika virus," says Larry Schultz. "If you reduce the mosquito population, you make parks more accessible."
"Bats really have been very maligned," says Bosworth -- noting they don't really swoop down on your head and get tangled in your hair.
Why people don't like bats is bejond me.
They are cute, it looks nice when they fly around and they harm no one.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I blame CmdrTaco for going AWOL.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
According to the National Geographic link at the end of the summary, only 5% of bats are infected. So there's really nothing to worry about: in a typical large colony with many thousands of individuals, only thousands of them carry rabies. /s
Seriously though - I am not anti-bat, or anti-wildlife in general, but it's pretty obvious that some of the more rabid Greens are willing to say whatever it takes to portray all wild animals as good neighbours, no matter how dangerous their deception is to fellow humans. (Another disturbing example of this being the way that many people insist that large predators - lions, bears, wolves, etc. - never attack humans, except by accident, or in defence of their young - despite thousands of years of evidence to the contrary.)
There are often (although certainly not always) good reasons that our ancestors wiped out the local populations of various pests and predators. A rational society should thoughtfully weigh the pros and cons of reintroducing them into populated areas, rather than committing the game management equivalent of alternative medicine's "natural = good" fallacy.