June 2, 2025 • 44 mins
Think bats are blind? Think again. In this myth-busting episode, we sit down with wildlife biologist Phillip Jordan to explore the surprising truths about one of nature’s most misunderstood creatures.
With nearly two decades of bat research under his belt, Phillip shares stories from late-night fieldwork, remote caves, and even a volcanic island in Nicaragua—where he studied dozens of bat species ranging from mosquito-hunters to nectar-feeders. You’ll learn how bats use both echolocation and night vision to navigate, why they're worth billions to U.S. agriculture, and what makes Arkansas a hotspot for bat diversity.
We also dig into real threats facing bat populations, including habitat loss and white-nose syndrome, a devastating fungal disease that's wiped out entire colonies. But it’s not all doom and gloom—Phillip offers practical steps we can take to protect these animals, from setting up bat boxes to rethinking how we manage our forests.
Whether you’re a curious naturalist or just want fewer mosquitoes in your yard, this episode will give you a new appreciation for the silent flyers above us—and why they matter more than most people realize.
For info on gardening for bats and all things bat boxes and visit the website of Bat Conservation International:
https://www.batcon.org/about-bats/bat-gardens-houses/
_______________________
What is the Natural Obsession Podcast all about?
Growing up, we all had those moments in nature that stuck with us—whether it was a quiet walk in the woods or a grand adventure. On Natural Obsession, it’s our desire to bring those moments to life. As we talk to people from all walks of life we will learn how they fell in love with the outdoors, the different ways they enjoy it today, and explore how we can work together to ensure these spaces are around for years to come. It’s all about sharing memories from the outdoors and ensuring future generations can make their own.
To find out more about Natural Obsession and hosts, Daniel Emison and TJ Virden, visit our website at https://www.natob.co/.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniel (00:03):
you've talked about their eyesight several times, I
know.
Growing up as a kid I thoughtbats couldn't see, but they have
good eyesight also
Philip (00:09):
oh yeah, that whole saying.
You're blind as a bat.
No man, I wish I was as blindas a bat, because they can see
super good.
The studies that are out therethey show that bats can see
eight to ten times better thanhumans.
So it's not just theirecholocation that gets them
around.
There's some species thatreally don't use echolocation
anymore.
They use more of their othersenses their eyesight, their
(00:32):
nose, and so these bats aroundhere they can see real well.
Daniel (00:40):
Growing up.
We all have those moments innature that stick with us,
whether it's a quiet walk in thewoods or a grand adventure on
Natural Obsession.
We bring those moments to life.
We're talking to people fromall walks of life, including
those who've seen nature's storyunfold over decades, to inspire
listeners to care for thespaces we love.
It's about keeping thosememories alive and ensuring
future generations can maketheir own.
TJ (01:10):
Hey and welcome to the Natural Obsession Podcast.
I'm TJ, this is Daniel, andtoday we were with Phillip
Jordan, wildlife biologist.
Phillip, tell us a little aboutyourself.
Philip (01:14):
Hey guys, my name is Phillip Jordan.
I'm a wildlife biologist.
I specialize in bats.
I've been working with bats for18, 20 years now and it's been
a fun run with them.
Yeah, Tell us a little bitabout your family.
Got a wife, Allison, and we'vebeen married for 20 years now in
(01:35):
July, actually.
Daniel (01:36):
Wow, congratulations.
Philip (01:38):
Thanks, and then got two kids.
Cool yeah.
TJ (01:41):
They into wildlife as well.
Philip (01:43):
Not as much my daughter.
I'm trying to get her intowildlife.
We got a lot of birds aroundthe house now and she's really
digging seeing all these littlebirds and whatnot pop up.
We got some Carolina wrens inour garage right now and the
baby birds are just finallyfledging, so, yeah, it's pretty
cool to watch.
TJ (02:02):
Yeah, so did you grow up being outside.
Philip (02:06):
Yeah, my parents.
They forced us outside.
I grew up in Northeast Arkansasand that's what it was about.
My dad took us hunting, fishingand, yeah, I was raised
outdoors and around all theseanimals.
I wasn't afraid of the snakesand I wasn't afraid to check out
the animals, and so that's whatdrew me to this job.
Daniel (02:26):
Yeah, so it sounds like you were naturally drawn to the
animals.
Philip (02:29):
Yeah, when I first went to ASU, my first time talking to
an advisor I was like you know,I want to work with animals and
not just in a clean environmentI'm not saying the zoo is a
clean environment, but morenaturalized environment.
So I was wanting to be outside.
Yeah, it makes sense.
Daniel (02:48):
Yeah, so as you were playing with animals as a kid,
is that when you got interestedin bats, or is that kind of
developed later on?
No, what drew you to that?
Philip (02:57):
No, you guys ever been outside at nighttime looking at
the street lamps and see a batfly?
Well, you can throw rocks upand battle chase it.
We would just take our socksoff right there, put rocks in a
sock and just throw them up andwatch the bats chase.
We'd be on the river atnighttime with my dad and see
all the bats go after theinsects because of our headlamps
(03:18):
, and it's always been a neatthing to watch.
So when I got the opportunityto work with them at Arkansas
State, I jumped on it and that'swhere I got into it.
TJ (03:30):
So that's when you decided it was actually in college that
you wanted to specialize in bats.
Philip (03:34):
Well, my advisor, dr Tom Risch, he's my mentor and we
worked really close over theyears together and he, through
the school, had a consultingfirm and we would go out and
we'd catch bats for the OzarkNational Forest and that's how I
just kind of fell into it.
He offered me a position and Iwas like, yeah, man, I've always
liked this animal.
(03:55):
Yeah, interesting, did you justcall it an internship?
You know, the first summer itwas an internship doing wildlife
biology.
You have to have an internshipunder you before you can
graduate.
And so that was going to be myinternship and, much to my shock
, I really, really enjoyed it.
Being in the woods at night itis a super different experience.
(04:16):
I'm sure that our hunters andcan attest to this.
They go to the blind early inthe morning, go to the deer
stand super early in the morning, go to the deer stand super
early in the morning, go to theturkey blind super early in the
morning, and everything'sdifferent at night time.
But when you're talking thedead of night, two in the
morning, midnight, you couldtake a trail 25 times and at
(04:38):
night time you take it.
It's completely different andyou got different animals,
different sounds.
It's just a differentexperience to be in the woods at
nighttime and that was a prettygood gig to have, you know,
yeah.
Daniel (04:51):
So were y'all looking for like caves or like open
areas?
I don't imagine bats justflying around in the middle of
woods.
No, yeah.
Philip (04:58):
They totally do.
That's where we find a majorityof our bats is on trails.
So the way we catch our bats-and this could be jumping ahead
but, the way that we do it.
We try to block off a flyway,whether it's a creek, a trail,
whatever.
We use these very fine netsbecause they're very tricky and
(05:19):
they're hard to catch.
They see really well atnighttime and so you can put up
two nets back to back.
They can dodge one but they canhit the other.
TJ (05:28):
I'd say, majority of the time we're in the woods yeah in
the middle of the morning,middle of the night, middle of
the morning, yeah, that's reallycool, I was reading about you a
little bit on the internetdoing some saluting, yeah, and
saw that you had been somepretty cool places to do some
research with bats.
You want to tell us a littleabout that?
Philip (05:46):
Yeah, so three years in a row.
I spent two weeks during thesummertime, the beginning of
summer, in Nicaragua.
You're talking about adifferent range of bats.
We have like 15, 16 specieshere in the state of Arkansas In
Nicaragua.
I think in our two week trip wehit like 36, 40 species and it
was like an incredible diversityof animals.
(06:08):
You have your fruit bats, yournectar bats, your vampire bats,
you have your insect bats.
It's really, really neat.
The biggest bat that I've evercaught was a fishing bat and it
was in Nicaragua and it was a110-gram animal bat and it was
in nicaragua and it's 110 gramanimal and to compare that with
(06:29):
our bats here we have eight gram, at most 25 gram animals yeah,
what's the wingspan on somethinglike that?
maybe a foot I I can't reallyget the wingspan on that maybe a
foot, I would say.
I mean, they're pretty large,they're, they carry fish.
So yeah, yeah, that's reallycool yeah, they're not fruit bat
or a flying fox.
Bat size, yeah, but they're waybigger than what we have here.
(06:51):
So, yeah, medium size.
I guess you would say yeahmedium size, a little bit of
larger here for our area yeah,okay, okay, makes sense why do
they have so many varieties ofbats?
Daniel (07:02):
just because the of the terrain there.
Philip (07:04):
It's more the seasons, so during the rainy season the
flowers are blooming, there'sfruit everywhere.
It's just a plethora of preyand food source for these
animals, and you know theyreally don't have a winter.
Daniel (07:21):
We have these really tough winters up here, so
there's no food source and it'sabout the food source yeah, okay
, I may be jumping ahead alittle bit, but do they protect
their bats at all, or they justnaturally flourish there and
don't have to worry about it?
Philip (07:33):
no, they pretty much just flourish.
They do a lot of agriculturedown there and so this
agriculture can help these batsout and they pollinate these
trees and everything.
So it's kind of a symbioticrelationship between humans and
bats.
It can be a good thing.
TJ (07:51):
When you were over there, what stood out to you?
What was your favorite partabout that trip?
Philip (07:55):
The animals.
We were on an island.
I'm blanking on the island, butit's in the middle of Lake
Nicaragua and it's a volcanicisland, so everywhere you go
it's just straight up.
But, the biodiversity of thebat species is just insane.
That was what really stood out.
TJ (08:13):
It was a fun trip and that was that part of your schooling
when you went to do that.
Philip (08:17):
The first year I went, it was a class that I took.
The second year it was an upperlevel course that I took.
And then the third year I wasjust like all right, well, I
went too.
Second year, it was an upperlevel course that I took, and
then the third year I was justlike all right, well, I went to
and it was really fun, so I wentin a third year.
Daniel (08:30):
Yeah, yeah, why do bats got a bad rap?
Philip (08:35):
they're little dark blobs that fly at night and
they're mysterious.
You can't really see them upclose when they're flying and
just darting in and out oflighted situations.
They hang upside down.
They've had a bad rat for avery long time and getting that
bad rat taken away it takes time, and so that's one thing that I
(08:59):
really enjoy doing is taking aspecies like a rat bat.
They're orange and they're kindof poofy.
We catch them all the time.
They're very abundant.
So I'd be out netting and thevehicle would pull up with a
bunch of kids or I would go to ascience camp with a bunch of
kids and I'd catch these batsand I would take a cute one.
(09:21):
We have some bats that aren'tas, and so I'd take like the red
bat and I'd show these kids andthey would always just really
really eat it up and really justenjoy it and doing stuff like
that to the next generationcoming up.
It helps and that's one thingthat I've always encouraged
wildlife people to do is toteach the next generations
(09:43):
coming up, because that's who'sgoing to be here to protect
these animals.
If you can show them a littlefuzzy bat, that's super cute.
Maybe that will spark theirinterest in a bat, spark their
interest in wildlife orsomething where they grow up and
want to protect those.
And we did this in Nicaragua.
There they have problems withvampire bats.
(10:05):
They feed on their chickens,they feed on their cows, they
spread rabies.
So there's a program to justkill bats and it was a pretty
harsh program.
And so the island folk ran aschool and they brought the
school to the research centerthat we was at.
That morning we got up likefour, five o'clock, still dark,
(10:25):
and set a few nets out, caughtseveral bats, several different
species.
We had some insect bats, we hadthe nectar bat and we had a
small fruit bat.
We didn't bring the vampire batand through a translator we
were able to talk to these kidsabout these bats that we had in
our hands and we were showingthem that everything that you
(10:47):
see flying at night is not avampire bat and you don't have
to be scared of every bat thatyou see hanging in your barn or
in your home or something.
They're not all that scary yeah, it makes sense.
TJ (10:59):
Yeah, so do you think that most of the fear comes from lack
of knowledge?
Philip (11:04):
Yeah, Even with adults.
If you can show adults thatthere are some really neat
looking bat species out there,you can turn them.
I've been at schools givingsome really cool presentations
just different varieties of batsand pictures of bats and these
adult teachers will just be likeoh well, I didn't know that we
had that sort of bat, or Ididn't know that that existed,
(11:28):
and so make it fun, becausethere's some really pretty
disturbing looking bats thewrinkled face bat is a bat that
you ought to look up when youhave time showing all these cute
little pictures of these tentmaking bats and all these other
animals and then all of a suddenpop up with this one and it's
fun.
Make it fun and they enjoy itand maybe you can bring a few
(11:50):
along.
TJ (11:51):
Yeah, my kids are already interested in bats and they
don't even know much about them.
Philip (11:54):
Yeah, they're just a really neat animal.
They're a curious species.
Why shouldn't we be curiousabout them as well?
Daniel (12:02):
So you had talked about the vampire bats flicking people
with rabies.
Is that the only bat thatreally does that?
Philip (12:08):
All mammals can transmit rabies.
It's more prevalent indifferent species, like here in
Arkansas and in the UnitedStates.
Fox, skunks and raccoonsprobably have a higher
transmission to human rate thanbats.
Bats just got the bad rap.
Unless you have shots, youdon't handle any wild mammal.
(12:29):
If a fox or a skunk orsomething comes up to you and
it's acting pretty cool even asquirrel you don't try to feed
it, you just leave it alone,because that could be a good
sign of it having rabies.
Stay current on all those shots.
Daniel (12:43):
Yeah, that's what you're saying.
Yeah, or leave them alone.
Don't touch them.
Call a wildlife professional.
Most of us have our shots.
I've played around bats a lotin my life and I've never had
any of them mess with me.
I've never had any land on meor anything like that.
So I just don't know where thatcomes from.
Philip (12:57):
really, no, there's that story of bats flying in girls'
hair and I've never seen itAnd'd make it a game.
I'd have all theseprofessionals near me and I
would kind of aim my bat towardsthem when I release and I'd
never have hit a person.
They are very agile.
They are very good During theswarm hundreds of bats can be on
(13:21):
a trail and they're pretty goodat avoiding.
There was one time that I didhave one land on me, but it was
in the middle of a creek and itwas during the swarm and I guess
it just needed a break.
Daniel (13:34):
Yeah, just resting for a minute, so it just sat on me
and then it took off.
Philip (13:37):
But it's needed a break, yeah, just resting for a minute
.
So it just sat on me and thenit took off, but it's never went
through my hair.
It's never just bit me withoutbeing provoked.
Yeah, that's just not what batsenjoy doing.
TJ (13:48):
Yeah, yeah.
What are some othermisconceptions you think people
have?
Philip (13:54):
That all of them eat blood.
All them are related to draculaor something, the halloween
scary, dark animal.
It's always shown as beingblack.
Yeah, there's no diversity inthe batman bats and in any bats
portrayed in comics or whatever.
(14:15):
It's just a black blob, a scaryobject which, if you are in a
cave and you rustle some up,yeah, it might be startling but
again, they're most likely notgoing to hit you.
Yeah.
Daniel (14:30):
What's your favorite thing about bats?
Philip (14:33):
Watching them.
I mean the agility.
They're pretty amazing flyers.
If you get out on a lake or abody of water, somewhere where
they're feeding and you look outright at dusk, you can just
watch them fly.
They perform some of thecoolest acrobatics in the area.
They'll do flips.
They're really cool to watchand they're a challenge and I've
(14:53):
always enjoyed challengesthroughout my life.
They're hard to study.
It's a fun animal.
TJ (14:59):
Cool, you said we have 16 species in Arkansas.
Philip (15:04):
A few years ago I could say without a doubt we had 16
species in Arkansas.
I think we're going to approachthis subject here in a little
while, but what I know is it'sreally hit the little brown bat
really, really hard and wedidn't have a large population
of little brown bat here, but wedid have populations and that's
all but gone.
Really, yeah, I'm thinking thestate biologist also says that
(15:29):
we are down to 15 species herein the state Out of the states.
Arkansas is one of the morediverse states for bats.
The amount of woods that wehave, the cave systems that we
have.
We have a very large, alldiverse bat population here in
the state out of any state.
TJ (15:48):
Yeah, I was reading that one of those bats has a wingspan of
like 16 inches.
Maybe Was it the Horry bat.
Philip (15:54):
Yeah, the Horry bat.
Yeah, that's one of myfavorites here in the state.
It took me forever to catchthis bat.
I'm telling you, it plagued me.
There's two bats on my listthat I didn't have.
It was the Brazilian free tailand the hoary bat.
I caught the Ozark Bigger batbefore I caught a hoary bat, and
that's like one of the rarestbats in the world I caught a
(16:16):
hoary bat and that's like one ofthe rarest bats in the world.
So yeah, I'd seen others catchthis bat, seen it several times.
You know a hoary bat when yousee it.
It's got so many differentcolors.
It's a large animal.
It screams bloody murder.
Yeah it sounds like a littledevil.
They're really cool animals,though.
I'd seen a bunch of them, but Ijust had never caught one in
(16:37):
one of my net sets.
I've caught tons of them since,but yeah, that was on my list
for six or seven years.
Yeah, it was just one of thosespecies that I could just never
catch, and now I've caughtbunches of them.
Yeah, yeah, it plagued me, yeah.
TJ (16:55):
Tell us a little bit about that Biggered bat.
Why is it so rare?
Philip (16:59):
Well, it's a disjunct population from other Biggered
bats, so we have our RaffinaceBiggered bat, the Virginia
Biggered bat and the OzarkBiggered bat.
TJ (17:10):
Okay.
Philip (17:10):
Those are all related, but the Virginia Biggered bat
and Ozark Bigger Bat aredisjunct populations from the
larger Corynorhinus genus.
So with disjunct populations ofany animal it's going to be a
smaller population.
The Ozark Bigger Bat.
(17:31):
It just stays in the OzarkPlateau area and that's what
this tattoo is.
This is actually a picture thatI took that's the cover of an
Arkansas bat guide, and so it'sjust a small area in Oklahoma,
in Arkansas, that has these3,000 to 5,000 animals of this
species.
TJ (17:50):
That's really cool.
They're mostly in caves.
They're in trees.
How do they know?
Philip (17:53):
They're a cave obligate.
That's what makes them verydisjunct.
You know we have other caveobligate.
The gray bat is also obligatedto caves, meaning that they
spend their entire lives incaves.
There's a system of caves fromkentucky down to oklahoma the
karst lime caves, and that'swhere the gray bat spends its
(18:14):
time, but the Virginia-biggerbat and the Ozark-bigger bats
it's just these two small areasthat they just stay in.
I don't know why they don'tmove.
I don't know that answer, butthat's just where they are.
TJ (18:29):
Yeah.
Daniel (18:30):
So we've talked about bats quite a bit now.
So what makes them unique tothe environment, like?
What's their purpose?
Well, that can go along withfood sources right a bit now.
So what makes them unique tothe environment, like?
Philip (18:36):
what's their purpose?
Well, that can go along withfood sources, right?
So the bats that that hang outhere in the state, they're
insect eaters, they'reinsectivorous.
These guys, they, they hammerthe insects.
All right, I wrote this down soI could recite it.
Yeah, just like a little brownbat, it's one of our smaller
species.
They can eat 6 000 to 8 000mosquitoes in a night.
(18:59):
Whoa, all right.
Now these guys can have like a40 year lifespan.
Four, no 40, 40 they have along lifespan.
So, just looking at the pestinsects that they eat rootworm,
the cloverworm, plant bugs theseanimals do huge service with
(19:21):
insect control.
A guy by the name BullsB-L-Y-L-E-S, him and several of
his colleagues done a study backin 2011, and they figured that
just here in the United States,farmers and humans receive a
cash benefit from bats of $3.7to $53 billion a year.
(19:43):
Bats eat a lot of insects.
They keep the spread ofdangerous diseases down.
That's farmers not having tospray pest control.
The ecological services providedfrom bats is extraordinary.
People don't realize thatbecause, again, they fly at
night and they're not in ourface.
You can't hear them, and sopeople forget.
(20:05):
That's why it's so important tohave scientists like myself and
other specialists on whetherit's a snake, whether it's a
snail, whether it's fungus,whether it's bats.
We need these people to be outthere studying these organisms
so we know what they do forhumans and we know the services
that they provide.
(20:25):
And that's another thing that'slost throughout all of this is
the importance of science andthe importance of scientists to
provide these answers to what wedon't know.
We didn't know that bats couldecholocate at one time.
It's a pretty cruel story, butscientists figured that out by
sticking hot needles in batseyes and blinding them and
(20:47):
letting them fly around at night.
They were still navigating.
Our ethics have come a long waysince then um, but scientists
are very important to figure outthese answers to different
things.
TJ (21:00):
What part do they play in pollination?
Because, as we talked to likeQuail Forever Arkansas Game of
Fish, they've talked a lot aboutbats playing a role in
pollinating.
So how does that work?
Philip (21:08):
Well, we don't really get a whole lot of pollination
from bats here in the States.
That's more insects in theUnited States, but in Central
America and in the the tropicsthey're invaluable pollinators.
There's pictures of bats that'sjust covered in pollen and
there's some plant species thatonly use bats to pollinate agave
(21:31):
it is pollinated by bats, andwe would not have tequila if not
for bats.
That's one of those specialtiesthat only bats do.
There's a species of plant thathas a flower that the bat has
to stick its face so far down.
It hits like a trigger and itdrops pollen off on the back of
(21:52):
the bat.
That's crazy.
And then the next tree that thebat goes to it does the same
thing.
So yeah, bats in the tropicsabsolutely are super important
for pollination.
TJ (22:03):
Yeah, but not as much in the States.
Philip (22:05):
Not as much.
Here in the States, our guys,they do a number on the insects.
That's how we get our servicesfrom them Okay.
Daniel (22:12):
Yeah, so they eat a lot of insects.
Like in neighborhoods we sprayfor mosquitoes and all that.
How does that hurt thepopulation?
Does it hurt the population?
They just hang out in the woodsand eat the mosquitoes.
Philip (22:22):
No, that wouldn't hurt.
There's plenty of mosquitoes inother places and there's plenty
of pest insects in other placesAll these moths that damage
crops, trees and whatnot.
These bats are at night justhammering these things.
I was talking a little brownbat.
That was one of our smallerspecies.
You're talking about a hoarybat or a brown bat.
(22:43):
They're eating harmful beetlesand all these other bad insects.
So it's not just the smallannoying mosquitoes that get us.
It's the larger beetles andmoths that can actually do some
real damage on our agriculture.
Daniel (22:59):
So does it hurt them to spray the mosquitoes?
Philip (23:01):
Yeah, I don't know.
So that would be something likea bioaccumulation of some sort
of chemical.
I don't know if that's beenlooked at or not.
I don't know that answer.
There's your next researchtopic.
Daniel (23:16):
I don't like mosquitoes yeah, so I'm just curious what
is the downside of having a batin the neighborhood?
Philip (23:23):
there's absolutely no downside bats.
They can get into big coloniesand big colonies can have a lot
of um poop everywhere.
Daniel (23:31):
Yeah, there you go.
Philip (23:33):
That's the best way to say yeah, a lot of animals
together can bring a lot ofstuff that humans don't really
want Bat guano and bat urine.
It just don't smell very good.
But if you can find a place toset a bat box up away from your
house, that's not going tobother you very much.
Absolutely put a bat box up,invite these guys to your home,
(23:57):
to your neighborhood, and ifthere's trees there, you more
than likely have bats in yourneighborhood.
Even if there's trees close,you're more than likely gonna
have bats near you hitting thestreet lights for insects or
something.
Um, if you can get them closer,it not going to be a problem to
you or anybody.
One of the big questions I getis about bat boxes.
(24:21):
Where do we put them?
What kind do we use?
A lot of people will put a batbox up and six months later it's
like man, why don't I have anybats in?
TJ (24:32):
my box.
Philip (24:33):
A year later, I still don't have any 18 months man,
where are these bats?
They're not just gonna show up,it's not.
It takes time.
They could have a favorite treethat they're hanging at right
now, and trees don't lastforever, so maybe their tree's
about to go and they're gonnaneed a spot.
So if your bat box is up, maybeyou'll have bats.
(24:53):
Maybe you won't, but that's anoption for your bat box is up,
maybe you'll have bats.
Maybe you won't, but that's anoption for your bat.
I've seen a lot of bat boxesjust in random places get used
by bats.
It gives them the option andunfortunately they're going to
start needing options.
Daniel (25:08):
Yeah, yeah.
So there's nothing to attractthem to the bat box, though no,
I think there's been severalstudies to where you put
something near the bat box.
Philip (25:15):
Though I think there's been several studies to where
you put something near the batbox, I don't think that there's
any quick life hack that bringsbats near your home?
TJ (25:24):
yeah, so that was one of the questions we had from other
people that knew that we weredoing this episode with you was
like what kind of back box?
Where to put it?
How to build it?
Do you have a resource for that?
Philip (25:35):
oh, yeah, yeah, but again time, it's gonna take time
and don't give up on your batbox.
Uh, there's these really greatpeople as bat conservation
international and their websiteis wwwbatconorg.
Okay, they have plans for bathouses.
They have where you need to setyour bat house up, what you
(25:56):
don't need to have near your bathouse.
Don't stick it on a tree.
That's one of the things thatyou don't want to do, really,
because a snake can crawl up thetree and mine's on a tree.
TJ (26:05):
Yeah, I failed first, first thing out of the box.
Philip (26:08):
I failed snakes eating all the bats right, there's
different things, like you don'twant to do with your bat house,
and so so this batconorg theygo through the steps that you
don't want to do and things thatyou do want to do, like if you
have water near your property.
You know, having a bat box nearyour home is a really good idea
(26:29):
, and it goes through differenttopics.
It has research papers and ittalks about white nose syndrome
and a lot of these other things.
So, yeah, it's a really goodresource for people wanting to
know more about bats.
TJ (26:41):
Yeah, so you've been talking about bats roosting in trees.
I know that I've got a bunch ofshagbark hickory on my place.
Philip (26:48):
I've heard that's good for them.
What are some?
TJ (26:49):
other trees that might benefit them besides that.
Philip (26:53):
They like pine trees.
They like loose bark.
That they like pine trees.
They like loose bark If youhave snags on your property and
they're not going to be a dangerto anybody.
You can leave your snags andbats like to roost in snags.
They do roost in a bunch ofdifferent types of trees and
different trees more than others.
If you have trees on yourproperty, just leave your trees
(27:14):
alone and more than likelyyou're going to have bats at
some point in time.
But shagbark hickory is areally good one to have, yeah.
TJ (27:21):
I got lots of it, so I've got a strong bat population
there as well.
Daniel (27:25):
Nice We've talked about how thick our trees are on
several podcasts.
For the Ozarks they're actuallytoo thick.
Do they like really woodedareas or do they like more open
areas?
Well, it depends on the species.
Philip (27:36):
We have cluttered, adapted species like your
smaller bats talking, like ourIndiana bat, northern long-eared
bat, our small-footed bat.
And then you have biggerspecies, a bigger body, that are
more open, adapted, like ourhoary bat, our red bat, our
braytail bat.
So, different species likedifferent areas.
The northern long-eared bat,it's called a gleaner.
(27:58):
The way it gets its prey is itgleans it off of plants, like
some sort of insect sitting on atree branch or something.
It'll just come and it'll pickit off that.
So yeah, depending on differentspecies.
Daniel (28:11):
Yeah, we've talked about different habitats for like
quail and turkey, and they needa little more open area.
Philip (28:18):
So we just kind of wondered how they play into that
.
Yeah, again, I can't go back tohow good a flyer's bats are.
They can fly really really welland their echolocation inside
they get around really good atnighttime.
So some of these bats can kickthrough some cluttered spaces
and some of them just like tohave an open floor so they can
just figure along like they want.
TJ (28:39):
Is there any habitat work you see going on these days that
is helpful for bats as well?
Because, like he's saying,we've talked to several people
who are saying we've got to thinour basal area in the forest to
reduce tree density.
Is that beneficial to bats ordo you think that's hurting the
population of bats?
Philip (28:54):
Again, it depends on your species.
Or you think that's hurting thepopulation of bats?
Again, it depends on yourspecies.
If we're talking about the moreendangered species, you don't
want to have it so fluttered towhere nothing can get through.
But having early successionalwouldn't be detrimental to the
smaller bats and having an openfloor isn't going to be
detrimental to any bats.
Just don't cut their wholeforest down and I think we'll be
(29:17):
all right.
Yeah.
Daniel (29:18):
It's just so thick right now, nothing even lives out
there.
You know, everything justpasses through.
Philip (29:23):
Yeah, no, you don't want to have a wall.
Nothing can get through.
They're going to fly over thetop of your woods or they're
going to fly your creeks orsomething.
Yeah, if they're just passingthrough, they'll get around your
property or they'll comethrough your property, going 14,
15 miles a night in nothing,wow, yeah.
Daniel (29:43):
You've talked about their eyesight several times, I
know.
Growing up as a kid I thoughtbats couldn't see, but they have
good eyesight also.
Philip (29:49):
Oh yeah, that whole saying you're blind as a bat.
No man, I wish I was as blindas a bat, because they can see
super good.
The studies that are out therethey show that bats can see
eight to ten times better thanhumans at night time.
So it's not just theirecholocation that gets them
around.
There's some species in Africathat really don't use
(30:10):
echolocation anymore.
They use more of their othersenses their eyesight, their
nose, and so these bats aroundhere they can see real well, do
you know where that came about?
Daniel (30:20):
blind as a bat, did they originally think they were
blind.
Philip (30:23):
I don't know.
I don't know where that onecame from.
I've never looked it up.
I'm sure there's.
Some saw bat flying intosomething and it's like oh well,
I don't know.
TJ (30:34):
Who knows?
So is there any habitat workthat we can do or anything that
we can plant to help that?
Do you think?
Philip (30:39):
Just don't take all the trees away.
If it's really thick, it's goodto work on it to clear that
understory to where animals canuse your property.
That's always going to beadvantageous.
That's why burning is the wayit is.
Even natural burns.
That's what they do.
They come through and theyclear the understory and then
that opens that wooded area upfor animals and other things to
(31:03):
come through and it brings alongother plant species as well.
There could be a seed bankthere of some really cool
natural wildflowers and you getrid of these things that are
taking the sunlight away fromyour floor.
You can get a really neatground sprout.
TJ (31:18):
So yeah, yeah, and that's benefiting insects, so I guess
you're benefiting bats by havingmore understory and cessational
growth.
Yeah.
Philip (31:25):
I mean if you can get that thick wall of stuff out
you're opening it up for a lotof stuff.
Yeah.
TJ (31:31):
Yeah.
Daniel (31:32):
So you've given us lots of information about bats.
How's the population?
I know we kind of touched onthis earlier.
Is it just the white nosethat's causing the issue, or is
it other things?
Philip (31:41):
Yeah, I don't think that we've really talked about the
white nose.
Daniel (31:44):
You had just touched it for just a second.
Philip (31:47):
All right.
So let's go into that a littlebit, because again, it's one of
those subjects that I don'tthink is put out into the larger
population.
People know about it, but dothey so?
White nose syndrome is causedby a fungus Pseudogemesis
destructans is the scientificname, something like that.
But anyways, it's a cold lovingfungus, so in the wintertime is
(32:10):
when it really grows.
Our bats hibernate in thewintertime and so that makes
them a target much like mold ona piece of bread.
This fungus started out at moldon a piece of bread.
This fungus started out at thisone little piece of bread, but
if you leave it too longundisturbed it's just going to
spread out through it, right?
Well, that's what this fungusdoes to bat colonies.
You could have a bat colony offour to 5,000 animals at the
(32:33):
beginning of winter and youcould have one focal bat, but by
the time winter's over it couldspread to pretty much the
entire colony.
Now, that's not the end of thebat, just right there, because
the fungus has to really getgoing.
But the bat has now got thatfungus on it.
They go into hibernation with acertain amount of body fat to
(32:55):
get them through.
Well, when the fungus reallytakes over, it gets under the
skin.
So these bats wake up duringthe wintertime and they really
start scratching and trying toget away from this itch.
We assume, because we see themitch, they're flying, they're
itching, they're scratching,they're using up all this fat
reserve that they have stored.
(33:16):
Well, they go outside theircave it's super cold, guess what
?
There's no insects, so theycan't replenish their body fat.
They go looking for water.
Well, guess what?
All the water's locked upbecause it's wintertime, so they
can't get their drink.
So they either end up on theoutside of their hibernation
cave, starving, freezing ordehydrated.
(33:36):
That's how the fungus takesover the bat, and we've had
caves like up in the Northeastwhere it really took foot in
2006.
Tens of thousands of bats inthis one particular cave, down
to almost zero Wow, so almost100% mortality through this cave
system.
That's devastating for anypopulation.
(33:59):
But these are small animals,slow reproducing animals, and so
a disease like this is theworst wildlife disease in human
history, something that humanshave actually witnessed.
It's the worst thing we've everseen.
Daniel (34:12):
So what do you do to combat it?
And where did it come from?
Why is it now a problem?
So what do?
Philip (34:17):
you do to combat it?
And where did it come from?
Why is it now a problem?
The hypothesis on where it camefrom is that it came from
Europe, maybe from a person thatwent caving in Europe and
brought it here, because thegenetics is really super close.
There's bats in Europe thathave this white fungus growing
on them as well, but they're notdying, and so the thought is
that these bats went throughtheir population decline due to
(34:40):
this fungus long, long time ago,something that humans did not
witness.
They've adapted, and theirgenetics have adapted to
withstand this fungus that getson them.
Our bats weren't raised withthis fungus, their bodies don't
know it, and so it's like aninvasive species that comes in,
or like some sort of epidemicpandemic that comes through and
(35:01):
it just wipes out.
It's in almost every stateexcept Florida, canadian
provinces, except BritishColumbia, and it's even made it
to Mexico.
Daniel (35:12):
Wow, Is there anything to kill it?
Spray on it or spray on them.
Philip (35:16):
Well, yeah, we can kill it.
409 kills it.
We have some really goodfungicides that'll kill it.
But the problem is cave systemsare super, super delicate.
There's fungus in cave systemsthat are nowhere else.
There's animals that are incave systems that are nowhere
else.
So you go, start spraying allthese different chemicals into a
(35:38):
delicate system.
You're going to kill the system.
Is it?
Destroy this system?
Save this and destroy that.
It's not a good situation.
Either way, there's some reallysmart people out there trying
to figure out how to save thisand not destroy that.
It's a puzzle, and it's a hardpuzzle to figure out because
you've got all these differentanimals going different places,
(36:00):
migrating hundreds of miles,hitting different caves along
the way, and then you have thehuman factor.
Humans spread white nose justas easy as bats.
Bats spread it to each other,we spread it different caves.
It's a super sticky spore andso humans can pick it up by
going into a cave super easy.
If they rub the wall or if theystep on something, they can
(36:23):
transmit the fungus from onecave system to a cave system
that's not had it before.
So there's some really gooddecontamination procedures on
the Fish and Wildlife websites.
It's also on the batconorgwebsite.
Not knocking cavers, becausecavers have found unknown
animals.
They found unknown passages.
They do some pretty crazy stuffand I don't know if you've been
(36:45):
deep in a cave.
It gets pretty crazy and deepin a cave.
But just decontaminate yourstuff and go through the
procedures to where you don'thave to spray these chemicals
into caves.
You spray them outside of thecaves and kill the fungus on the
outside and don't take it otherplaces with you.
So yeah, that's an importantpart is to know the steps on the
(37:06):
decontamination process.
TJ (37:08):
So you think that's.
The biggest threat that we'recurrently facing to bats is the
white nose syndrome.
Philip (37:13):
And habitat destruction, especially in like the tropics.
Here in the united states we'vegot some pretty good rules on
going out and just absolutelydestroying forests, but
unfortunately in south americaclear cutting these pristine
tropical forests that takes atoll on any animal, but right
now white nose is the problem ofour bats.
(37:36):
Yeah.
TJ (37:36):
Yep, I guess, if we're not careful though, we could do the
same thing other countries aredoing.
Philip (37:40):
Yeah, if we're not careful and if we don't keep a
solid habitat and solidecosystem for the bats, yeah, it
won't look good.
Yeah, right now the cavespecies are getting hit hard by
white nose and our forestspecies.
The biology of these speciescan be completely different.
The eastern rat bat it stays inthe woods all its life.
(38:04):
It has a fuzzy tail and it'spart of the Lazioeris genus,
kind of like a horibat.
They have really fuzzy tailsand so they can get up in the
forest floor, curl up with someleaves, curl their head up in
the fuzzy tail and they can juststay on the forest floor
through.
Curl up with some leaves, curltheir head up in the fuzzy tail
and they can just stay on theforest floor through the coldest
winters.
And so if we go destroying ourwoods, we've lost our cave bats
(38:25):
and we can't lose them all.
We've got to take care of ourwoods.
Daniel (38:30):
So if anybody wants to help bats, what can they do?
Philip (38:34):
Learn.
Listen to podcasts about bats,go on Google, look at some bats.
Learn about bats.
Put bat houses up when you goto a cave decon afterwards Read
the steps to them, because it'sreally important that you get it
right.
When you come outside of thecave, you don't want to carry it
to your vehicle, to where youcan spread it, so learn the
(38:57):
steps before you go caving.
Teach the kids.
If you see a bat on the horizonat nighttime, show a kid.
People need to understand justhow important bats are, and
we're not there yet.
There's not enough people likeme to go around to teach kids
every you, you know, maybe thatawareness is the greatest
(39:18):
conservation tool we have.
TJ (39:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
Philip (39:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
Daniel (39:22):
And I think that's what we're trying to do here is just
bring it to light with thedifferent species and protecting
them, and that it's importantto protect them.
No matter what's going on inthe government.
Our forest systems and ouranimals are important and I
think the more people you getinvolved with that and enjoying
the animals and outside, that'sthe best defense against any
kind of crazy changes.
Philip (39:42):
Yeah, man, no matter what's going on politically,
whether it's South America, inthe United States, in Europe,
animals are still using ourwoods, animals are still using
caves.
There's a lot going on outsideof our world.
There's a lot of people thatjust don't understand what is
out there.
Knowledge is the best.
Daniel (40:02):
Yeah, be curious about it.
Philip (40:03):
Yeah, just be curious about what's going on.
The more that humans canobserve animals doing really
cool stuff, maybe we can spreadthat awareness.
Hey man, this bat eats 4,000mosquitoes a night.
4,000 mosquitoes that awareness, hey man, this bat eats 4 000
mosquitoes a night 4 000mosquitoes.
And then we multiply that bythe bats that are out there
eating, that's prettysignificant mosquito control.
(40:24):
Putting stories out like that,stories out like hey man, bats
provide farmers with about 53billion dollars a year in
savings.
You know, yeah, just cool FYIs.
Little tidbits of neatinformation that people can
glean from Batch might change aperson's mind.
TJ (40:43):
Yeah, I think so.
Philip (40:44):
And that's what I'm about, and that's what's cool
about you guys.
Y'all can change a person'smind.
Yeah, that's what we're goingfor for sure.
TJ (40:52):
Would you say there are any other good resources besides the
website you mentioned thatpeople could look at books,
maybe that you suggest, ororganizations?
Philip (40:59):
The Game and Fish here in the state Blake Sasse.
He's a really good batbiologist.
He's with the Game and Fish,the Arkansas Bats.
It's a guidebook to the bats ofArkansas.
It's a really good one and it'sfor the layperson.
It's not heavy on scientificinformation.
It's just a really good bookand you can find that at most
Forest Service District offices.
(41:21):
There's a lot of scientificinformation out there.
Of course, you can do a GoogleScholar on bats and you'll pull
up a crazy amount of articles.
Daniel (41:32):
What gives you hope when it comes to the future of bat
population and bat conservation?
Philip (41:39):
hope when it comes to the future of bat population and
bat conservation.
So one thing that I've noticedgoing throughout different
schools here, especially locally, these kids are curious.
It might be odd generations ofkids, but the kids that I went
out and talked to about thesebats and about different animals
, they've been curious.
That's what gives me hope isthe curiosity of the next
generation that's coming up.
(41:59):
There's some smart kids outthere and it's always impressive
.
I leave like the last 15 to 20minutes or so of my
presentations open for anyquestions.
I get some really really goodquestions and that gives me hope
is that these kids are gonnacontinue to ask these really
cool questions and hopefullysome of the things that I've
(42:21):
taught maybe triggers thatcuriosity in the future to where
these kids will take up themantle of the next bat
researcher yeah you know,
TJ (42:29):
I think the kids coming up are what I look forward to, yeah
okay, I think the last one Ihave for you is just if somebody
wants to see bats in arkansas,where do you tell them to go to?
Philip (42:42):
well, you can always go to blanchard springs cavern.
You can always see at least atricolor bat down there or, like
I said, um, just a larger bodyof water or creek or river or
something.
At dusk, right when the sun'sabout to break, the horizon go
low, so they come out and thefirst thing they want to do is
get a drink.
You can see some bats doingsome really really neat
(43:04):
acrobatics.
It's just really really cool towatch.
So if you just look out acrossthe horizon at dusk, you'll see
them, and it's really a treat towatch them sit there and play
and to eat their insects.
TJ (43:15):
Yeah, yeah, we really appreciate you coming out and
talk to us.
Man, it's been good.
Philip (43:20):
Good, all right, guys, man, I'm glad y'all looked me up
and invited me down.
TJ (43:23):
Yeah, man yeah, we appreciate it all right.
Daniel (43:25):
Thanks so much coming on .
Yeah, no worries hey, if thisepisode made you think of
someone, would you share it withthem real quick?
That's one of the best ways tohelp the show grow.
TJ (43:38):
Well, folks, that wraps up another episode of the Natural
Obsession podcast.
As always, we'd like to thankyou for listening.
If you'd like to hear moreepisodes, get in contact with us
or learn more about Daniel andI and why we do this, visit our
website at natobco.
That's N-A-T-O-B dot C-O.
you've talked about their eyesight several times, I
know.
Growing up as a kid I thoughtbats couldn't see, but they have
good eyesight also
Philip (00:09):
oh yeah, that whole saying.
You're blind as a bat.
No man, I wish I was as blindas a bat, because they can see
super good.
The studies that are out therethey show that bats can see
eight to ten times better thanhumans.
So it's not just theirecholocation that gets them
around.
There's some species thatreally don't use echolocation
anymore.
They use more of their othersenses their eyesight, their
(00:32):
nose, and so these bats aroundhere they can see real well.
Daniel (00:40):
Growing up.
We all have those moments innature that stick with us,
whether it's a quiet walk in thewoods or a grand adventure on
Natural Obsession.
We bring those moments to life.
We're talking to people fromall walks of life, including
those who've seen nature's storyunfold over decades, to inspire
listeners to care for thespaces we love.
It's about keeping thosememories alive and ensuring
future generations can maketheir own.
TJ (01:10):
Hey and welcome to the Natural Obsession Podcast.
I'm TJ, this is Daniel, andtoday we were with Phillip
Jordan, wildlife biologist.
Phillip, tell us a little aboutyourself.
Philip (01:14):
Hey guys, my name is Phillip Jordan.
I'm a wildlife biologist.
I specialize in bats.
I've been working with bats for18, 20 years now and it's been
a fun run with them.
Yeah, Tell us a little bitabout your family.
Got a wife, Allison, and we'vebeen married for 20 years now in
(01:35):
July, actually.
Daniel (01:36):
Wow, congratulations.
Philip (01:38):
Thanks, and then got two kids.
Cool yeah.
TJ (01:41):
They into wildlife as well.
Philip (01:43):
Not as much my daughter.
I'm trying to get her intowildlife.
We got a lot of birds aroundthe house now and she's really
digging seeing all these littlebirds and whatnot pop up.
We got some Carolina wrens inour garage right now and the
baby birds are just finallyfledging, so, yeah, it's pretty
cool to watch.
TJ (02:02):
Yeah, so did you grow up being outside.
Philip (02:06):
Yeah, my parents.
They forced us outside.
I grew up in Northeast Arkansasand that's what it was about.
My dad took us hunting, fishingand, yeah, I was raised
outdoors and around all theseanimals.
I wasn't afraid of the snakesand I wasn't afraid to check out
the animals, and so that's whatdrew me to this job.
Daniel (02:26):
Yeah, so it sounds like you were naturally drawn to the
animals.
Philip (02:29):
Yeah, when I first went to ASU, my first time talking to
an advisor I was like you know,I want to work with animals and
not just in a clean environmentI'm not saying the zoo is a
clean environment, but morenaturalized environment.
So I was wanting to be outside.
Yeah, it makes sense.
Daniel (02:48):
Yeah, so as you were playing with animals as a kid,
is that when you got interestedin bats, or is that kind of
developed later on?
No, what drew you to that?
Philip (02:57):
No, you guys ever been outside at nighttime looking at
the street lamps and see a batfly?
Well, you can throw rocks upand battle chase it.
We would just take our socksoff right there, put rocks in a
sock and just throw them up andwatch the bats chase.
We'd be on the river atnighttime with my dad and see
all the bats go after theinsects because of our headlamps
(03:18):
, and it's always been a neatthing to watch.
So when I got the opportunityto work with them at Arkansas
State, I jumped on it and that'swhere I got into it.
TJ (03:30):
So that's when you decided it was actually in college that
you wanted to specialize in bats.
Philip (03:34):
Well, my advisor, dr Tom Risch, he's my mentor and we
worked really close over theyears together and he, through
the school, had a consultingfirm and we would go out and
we'd catch bats for the OzarkNational Forest and that's how I
just kind of fell into it.
He offered me a position and Iwas like, yeah, man, I've always
liked this animal.
(03:55):
Yeah, interesting, did you justcall it an internship?
You know, the first summer itwas an internship doing wildlife
biology.
You have to have an internshipunder you before you can
graduate.
And so that was going to be myinternship and, much to my shock
, I really, really enjoyed it.
Being in the woods at night itis a super different experience.
(04:16):
I'm sure that our hunters andcan attest to this.
They go to the blind early inthe morning, go to the deer
stand super early in the morning, go to the deer stand super
early in the morning, go to theturkey blind super early in the
morning, and everything'sdifferent at night time.
But when you're talking thedead of night, two in the
morning, midnight, you couldtake a trail 25 times and at
(04:38):
night time you take it.
It's completely different andyou got different animals,
different sounds.
It's just a differentexperience to be in the woods at
nighttime and that was a prettygood gig to have, you know,
yeah.
Daniel (04:51):
So were y'all looking for like caves or like open
areas?
I don't imagine bats justflying around in the middle of
woods.
No, yeah.
Philip (04:58):
They totally do.
That's where we find a majorityof our bats is on trails.
So the way we catch our bats-and this could be jumping ahead
but, the way that we do it.
We try to block off a flyway,whether it's a creek, a trail,
whatever.
We use these very fine netsbecause they're very tricky and
(05:19):
they're hard to catch.
They see really well atnighttime and so you can put up
two nets back to back.
They can dodge one but they canhit the other.
TJ (05:28):
I'd say, majority of the time we're in the woods yeah in
the middle of the morning,middle of the night, middle of
the morning, yeah, that's reallycool, I was reading about you a
little bit on the internetdoing some saluting, yeah, and
saw that you had been somepretty cool places to do some
research with bats.
You want to tell us a littleabout that?
Philip (05:46):
Yeah, so three years in a row.
I spent two weeks during thesummertime, the beginning of
summer, in Nicaragua.
You're talking about adifferent range of bats.
We have like 15, 16 specieshere in the state of Arkansas In
Nicaragua.
I think in our two week trip wehit like 36, 40 species and it
was like an incredible diversityof animals.
(06:08):
You have your fruit bats, yournectar bats, your vampire bats,
you have your insect bats.
It's really, really neat.
The biggest bat that I've evercaught was a fishing bat and it
was in Nicaragua and it was a110-gram animal bat and it was
in nicaragua and it's 110 gramanimal and to compare that with
(06:29):
our bats here we have eight gram, at most 25 gram animals yeah,
what's the wingspan on somethinglike that?
maybe a foot I I can't reallyget the wingspan on that maybe a
foot, I would say.
I mean, they're pretty large,they're, they carry fish.
So yeah, yeah, that's reallycool yeah, they're not fruit bat
or a flying fox.
Bat size, yeah, but they're waybigger than what we have here.
(06:51):
So, yeah, medium size.
I guess you would say yeahmedium size, a little bit of
larger here for our area yeah,okay, okay, makes sense why do
they have so many varieties ofbats?
Daniel (07:02):
just because the of the terrain there.
Philip (07:04):
It's more the seasons, so during the rainy season the
flowers are blooming, there'sfruit everywhere.
It's just a plethora of preyand food source for these
animals, and you know theyreally don't have a winter.
Daniel (07:21):
We have these really tough winters up here, so
there's no food source and it'sabout the food source yeah, okay
, I may be jumping ahead alittle bit, but do they protect
their bats at all, or they justnaturally flourish there and
don't have to worry about it?
Philip (07:33):
no, they pretty much just flourish.
They do a lot of agriculturedown there and so this
agriculture can help these batsout and they pollinate these
trees and everything.
So it's kind of a symbioticrelationship between humans and
bats.
It can be a good thing.
TJ (07:51):
When you were over there, what stood out to you?
What was your favorite partabout that trip?
Philip (07:55):
The animals.
We were on an island.
I'm blanking on the island, butit's in the middle of Lake
Nicaragua and it's a volcanicisland, so everywhere you go
it's just straight up.
But, the biodiversity of thebat species is just insane.
That was what really stood out.
TJ (08:13):
It was a fun trip and that was that part of your schooling
when you went to do that.
Philip (08:17):
The first year I went, it was a class that I took.
The second year it was an upperlevel course that I took.
And then the third year I wasjust like all right, well, I
went too.
Second year, it was an upperlevel course that I took, and
then the third year I was justlike all right, well, I went to
and it was really fun, so I wentin a third year.
Daniel (08:30):
Yeah, yeah, why do bats got a bad rap?
Philip (08:35):
they're little dark blobs that fly at night and
they're mysterious.
You can't really see them upclose when they're flying and
just darting in and out oflighted situations.
They hang upside down.
They've had a bad rat for avery long time and getting that
bad rat taken away it takes time, and so that's one thing that I
(08:59):
really enjoy doing is taking aspecies like a rat bat.
They're orange and they're kindof poofy.
We catch them all the time.
They're very abundant.
So I'd be out netting and thevehicle would pull up with a
bunch of kids or I would go to ascience camp with a bunch of
kids and I'd catch these batsand I would take a cute one.
(09:21):
We have some bats that aren'tas, and so I'd take like the red
bat and I'd show these kids andthey would always just really
really eat it up and really justenjoy it and doing stuff like
that to the next generationcoming up.
It helps and that's one thingthat I've always encouraged
wildlife people to do is toteach the next generations
(09:43):
coming up, because that's who'sgoing to be here to protect
these animals.
If you can show them a littlefuzzy bat, that's super cute.
Maybe that will spark theirinterest in a bat, spark their
interest in wildlife orsomething where they grow up and
want to protect those.
And we did this in Nicaragua.
There they have problems withvampire bats.
(10:05):
They feed on their chickens,they feed on their cows, they
spread rabies.
So there's a program to justkill bats and it was a pretty
harsh program.
And so the island folk ran aschool and they brought the
school to the research centerthat we was at.
That morning we got up likefour, five o'clock, still dark,
(10:25):
and set a few nets out, caughtseveral bats, several different
species.
We had some insect bats, we hadthe nectar bat and we had a
small fruit bat.
We didn't bring the vampire batand through a translator we
were able to talk to these kidsabout these bats that we had in
our hands and we were showingthem that everything that you
(10:47):
see flying at night is not avampire bat and you don't have
to be scared of every bat thatyou see hanging in your barn or
in your home or something.
They're not all that scary yeah, it makes sense.
TJ (10:59):
Yeah, so do you think that most of the fear comes from lack
of knowledge?
Philip (11:04):
Yeah, Even with adults.
If you can show adults thatthere are some really neat
looking bat species out there,you can turn them.
I've been at schools givingsome really cool presentations
just different varieties of batsand pictures of bats and these
adult teachers will just be likeoh well, I didn't know that we
had that sort of bat, or Ididn't know that that existed,
(11:28):
and so make it fun, becausethere's some really pretty
disturbing looking bats thewrinkled face bat is a bat that
you ought to look up when youhave time showing all these cute
little pictures of these tentmaking bats and all these other
animals and then all of a suddenpop up with this one and it's
fun.
Make it fun and they enjoy itand maybe you can bring a few
(11:50):
along.
TJ (11:51):
Yeah, my kids are already interested in bats and they
don't even know much about them.
Philip (11:54):
Yeah, they're just a really neat animal.
They're a curious species.
Why shouldn't we be curiousabout them as well?
Daniel (12:02):
So you had talked about the vampire bats flicking people
with rabies.
Is that the only bat thatreally does that?
Philip (12:08):
All mammals can transmit rabies.
It's more prevalent indifferent species, like here in
Arkansas and in the UnitedStates.
Fox, skunks and raccoonsprobably have a higher
transmission to human rate thanbats.
Bats just got the bad rap.
Unless you have shots, youdon't handle any wild mammal.
(12:29):
If a fox or a skunk orsomething comes up to you and
it's acting pretty cool even asquirrel you don't try to feed
it, you just leave it alone,because that could be a good
sign of it having rabies.
Stay current on all those shots.
Daniel (12:43):
Yeah, that's what you're saying.
Yeah, or leave them alone.
Don't touch them.
Call a wildlife professional.
Most of us have our shots.
I've played around bats a lotin my life and I've never had
any of them mess with me.
I've never had any land on meor anything like that.
So I just don't know where thatcomes from.
Philip (12:57):
really, no, there's that story of bats flying in girls'
hair and I've never seen itAnd'd make it a game.
I'd have all theseprofessionals near me and I
would kind of aim my bat towardsthem when I release and I'd
never have hit a person.
They are very agile.
They are very good During theswarm hundreds of bats can be on
(13:21):
a trail and they're pretty goodat avoiding.
There was one time that I didhave one land on me, but it was
in the middle of a creek and itwas during the swarm and I guess
it just needed a break.
Daniel (13:34):
Yeah, just resting for a minute, so it just sat on me
and then it took off.
Philip (13:37):
But it's needed a break, yeah, just resting for a minute
.
So it just sat on me and thenit took off, but it's never went
through my hair.
It's never just bit me withoutbeing provoked.
Yeah, that's just not what batsenjoy doing.
TJ (13:48):
Yeah, yeah.
What are some othermisconceptions you think people
have?
Philip (13:54):
That all of them eat blood.
All them are related to draculaor something, the halloween
scary, dark animal.
It's always shown as beingblack.
Yeah, there's no diversity inthe batman bats and in any bats
portrayed in comics or whatever.
(14:15):
It's just a black blob, a scaryobject which, if you are in a
cave and you rustle some up,yeah, it might be startling but
again, they're most likely notgoing to hit you.
Yeah.
Daniel (14:30):
What's your favorite thing about bats?
Philip (14:33):
Watching them.
I mean the agility.
They're pretty amazing flyers.
If you get out on a lake or abody of water, somewhere where
they're feeding and you look outright at dusk, you can just
watch them fly.
They perform some of thecoolest acrobatics in the area.
They'll do flips.
They're really cool to watchand they're a challenge and I've
(14:53):
always enjoyed challengesthroughout my life.
They're hard to study.
It's a fun animal.
TJ (14:59):
Cool, you said we have 16 species in Arkansas.
Philip (15:04):
A few years ago I could say without a doubt we had 16
species in Arkansas.
I think we're going to approachthis subject here in a little
while, but what I know is it'sreally hit the little brown bat
really, really hard and wedidn't have a large population
of little brown bat here, but wedid have populations and that's
all but gone.
Really, yeah, I'm thinking thestate biologist also says that
(15:29):
we are down to 15 species herein the state Out of the states.
Arkansas is one of the morediverse states for bats.
The amount of woods that wehave, the cave systems that we
have.
We have a very large, alldiverse bat population here in
the state out of any state.
TJ (15:48):
Yeah, I was reading that one of those bats has a wingspan of
like 16 inches.
Maybe Was it the Horry bat.
Philip (15:54):
Yeah, the Horry bat.
Yeah, that's one of myfavorites here in the state.
It took me forever to catchthis bat.
I'm telling you, it plagued me.
There's two bats on my listthat I didn't have.
It was the Brazilian free tailand the hoary bat.
I caught the Ozark Bigger batbefore I caught a hoary bat, and
that's like one of the rarestbats in the world I caught a
(16:16):
hoary bat and that's like one ofthe rarest bats in the world.
So yeah, I'd seen others catchthis bat, seen it several times.
You know a hoary bat when yousee it.
It's got so many differentcolors.
It's a large animal.
It screams bloody murder.
Yeah it sounds like a littledevil.
They're really cool animals,though.
I'd seen a bunch of them, but Ijust had never caught one in
(16:37):
one of my net sets.
I've caught tons of them since,but yeah, that was on my list
for six or seven years.
Yeah, it was just one of thosespecies that I could just never
catch, and now I've caughtbunches of them.
Yeah, yeah, it plagued me, yeah.
TJ (16:55):
Tell us a little bit about that Biggered bat.
Why is it so rare?
Philip (16:59):
Well, it's a disjunct population from other Biggered
bats, so we have our RaffinaceBiggered bat, the Virginia
Biggered bat and the OzarkBiggered bat.
TJ (17:10):
Okay.
Philip (17:10):
Those are all related, but the Virginia Biggered bat
and Ozark Bigger Bat aredisjunct populations from the
larger Corynorhinus genus.
So with disjunct populations ofany animal it's going to be a
smaller population.
The Ozark Bigger Bat.
(17:31):
It just stays in the OzarkPlateau area and that's what
this tattoo is.
This is actually a picture thatI took that's the cover of an
Arkansas bat guide, and so it'sjust a small area in Oklahoma,
in Arkansas, that has these3,000 to 5,000 animals of this
species.
TJ (17:50):
That's really cool.
They're mostly in caves.
They're in trees.
How do they know?
Philip (17:53):
They're a cave obligate.
That's what makes them verydisjunct.
You know we have other caveobligate.
The gray bat is also obligatedto caves, meaning that they
spend their entire lives incaves.
There's a system of caves fromkentucky down to oklahoma the
karst lime caves, and that'swhere the gray bat spends its
(18:14):
time, but the Virginia-biggerbat and the Ozark-bigger bats
it's just these two small areasthat they just stay in.
I don't know why they don'tmove.
I don't know that answer, butthat's just where they are.
TJ (18:29):
Yeah.
Daniel (18:30):
So we've talked about bats quite a bit now.
So what makes them unique tothe environment, like?
What's their purpose?
Well, that can go along withfood sources right a bit now.
So what makes them unique tothe environment, like?
Philip (18:36):
what's their purpose?
Well, that can go along withfood sources, right?
So the bats that that hang outhere in the state, they're
insect eaters, they'reinsectivorous.
These guys, they, they hammerthe insects.
All right, I wrote this down soI could recite it.
Yeah, just like a little brownbat, it's one of our smaller
species.
They can eat 6 000 to 8 000mosquitoes in a night.
(18:59):
Whoa, all right.
Now these guys can have like a40 year lifespan.
Four, no 40, 40 they have along lifespan.
So, just looking at the pestinsects that they eat rootworm,
the cloverworm, plant bugs theseanimals do huge service with
(19:21):
insect control.
A guy by the name BullsB-L-Y-L-E-S, him and several of
his colleagues done a study backin 2011, and they figured that
just here in the United States,farmers and humans receive a
cash benefit from bats of $3.7to $53 billion a year.
(19:43):
Bats eat a lot of insects.
They keep the spread ofdangerous diseases down.
That's farmers not having tospray pest control.
The ecological services providedfrom bats is extraordinary.
People don't realize thatbecause, again, they fly at
night and they're not in ourface.
You can't hear them, and sopeople forget.
(20:05):
That's why it's so important tohave scientists like myself and
other specialists on whetherit's a snake, whether it's a
snail, whether it's fungus,whether it's bats.
We need these people to be outthere studying these organisms
so we know what they do forhumans and we know the services
that they provide.
(20:25):
And that's another thing that'slost throughout all of this is
the importance of science andthe importance of scientists to
provide these answers to what wedon't know.
We didn't know that bats couldecholocate at one time.
It's a pretty cruel story, butscientists figured that out by
sticking hot needles in batseyes and blinding them and
(20:47):
letting them fly around at night.
They were still navigating.
Our ethics have come a long waysince then um, but scientists
are very important to figure outthese answers to different
things.
TJ (21:00):
What part do they play in pollination?
Because, as we talked to likeQuail Forever Arkansas Game of
Fish, they've talked a lot aboutbats playing a role in
pollinating.
So how does that work?
Philip (21:08):
Well, we don't really get a whole lot of pollination
from bats here in the States.
That's more insects in theUnited States, but in Central
America and in the the tropicsthey're invaluable pollinators.
There's pictures of bats that'sjust covered in pollen and
there's some plant species thatonly use bats to pollinate agave
(21:31):
it is pollinated by bats, andwe would not have tequila if not
for bats.
That's one of those specialtiesthat only bats do.
There's a species of plant thathas a flower that the bat has
to stick its face so far down.
It hits like a trigger and itdrops pollen off on the back of
(21:52):
the bat.
That's crazy.
And then the next tree that thebat goes to it does the same
thing.
So yeah, bats in the tropicsabsolutely are super important
for pollination.
TJ (22:03):
Yeah, but not as much in the States.
Philip (22:05):
Not as much.
Here in the States, our guys,they do a number on the insects.
That's how we get our servicesfrom them Okay.
Daniel (22:12):
Yeah, so they eat a lot of insects.
Like in neighborhoods we sprayfor mosquitoes and all that.
How does that hurt thepopulation?
Does it hurt the population?
They just hang out in the woodsand eat the mosquitoes.
Philip (22:22):
No, that wouldn't hurt.
There's plenty of mosquitoes inother places and there's plenty
of pest insects in other placesAll these moths that damage
crops, trees and whatnot.
These bats are at night justhammering these things.
I was talking a little brownbat.
That was one of our smallerspecies.
You're talking about a hoarybat or a brown bat.
(22:43):
They're eating harmful beetlesand all these other bad insects.
So it's not just the smallannoying mosquitoes that get us.
It's the larger beetles andmoths that can actually do some
real damage on our agriculture.
Daniel (22:59):
So does it hurt them to spray the mosquitoes?
Philip (23:01):
Yeah, I don't know.
So that would be something likea bioaccumulation of some sort
of chemical.
I don't know if that's beenlooked at or not.
I don't know that answer.
There's your next researchtopic.
Daniel (23:16):
I don't like mosquitoes yeah, so I'm just curious what
is the downside of having a batin the neighborhood?
Philip (23:23):
there's absolutely no downside bats.
They can get into big coloniesand big colonies can have a lot
of um poop everywhere.
Daniel (23:31):
Yeah, there you go.
Philip (23:33):
That's the best way to say yeah, a lot of animals
together can bring a lot ofstuff that humans don't really
want Bat guano and bat urine.
It just don't smell very good.
But if you can find a place toset a bat box up away from your
house, that's not going tobother you very much.
Absolutely put a bat box up,invite these guys to your home,
(23:57):
to your neighborhood, and ifthere's trees there, you more
than likely have bats in yourneighborhood.
Even if there's trees close,you're more than likely gonna
have bats near you hitting thestreet lights for insects or
something.
Um, if you can get them closer,it not going to be a problem to
you or anybody.
One of the big questions I getis about bat boxes.
(24:21):
Where do we put them?
What kind do we use?
A lot of people will put a batbox up and six months later it's
like man, why don't I have anybats in?
TJ (24:32):
my box.
Philip (24:33):
A year later, I still don't have any 18 months man,
where are these bats?
They're not just gonna show up,it's not.
It takes time.
They could have a favorite treethat they're hanging at right
now, and trees don't lastforever, so maybe their tree's
about to go and they're gonnaneed a spot.
So if your bat box is up, maybeyou'll have bats.
(24:53):
Maybe you won't, but that's anoption for your bat box is up,
maybe you'll have bats.
Maybe you won't, but that's anoption for your bat.
I've seen a lot of bat boxesjust in random places get used
by bats.
It gives them the option andunfortunately they're going to
start needing options.
Daniel (25:08):
Yeah, yeah.
So there's nothing to attractthem to the bat box, though no,
I think there's been severalstudies to where you put
something near the bat box.
Philip (25:15):
Though I think there's been several studies to where
you put something near the batbox, I don't think that there's
any quick life hack that bringsbats near your home?
TJ (25:24):
yeah, so that was one of the questions we had from other
people that knew that we weredoing this episode with you was
like what kind of back box?
Where to put it?
How to build it?
Do you have a resource for that?
Philip (25:35):
oh, yeah, yeah, but again time, it's gonna take time
and don't give up on your batbox.
Uh, there's these really greatpeople as bat conservation
international and their websiteis wwwbatconorg.
Okay, they have plans for bathouses.
They have where you need to setyour bat house up, what you
(25:56):
don't need to have near your bathouse.
Don't stick it on a tree.
That's one of the things thatyou don't want to do, really,
because a snake can crawl up thetree and mine's on a tree.
TJ (26:05):
Yeah, I failed first, first thing out of the box.
Philip (26:08):
I failed snakes eating all the bats right, there's
different things, like you don'twant to do with your bat house,
and so so this batconorg theygo through the steps that you
don't want to do and things thatyou do want to do, like if you
have water near your property.
You know, having a bat box nearyour home is a really good idea
(26:29):
, and it goes through differenttopics.
It has research papers and ittalks about white nose syndrome
and a lot of these other things.
So, yeah, it's a really goodresource for people wanting to
know more about bats.
TJ (26:41):
Yeah, so you've been talking about bats roosting in trees.
I know that I've got a bunch ofshagbark hickory on my place.
Philip (26:48):
I've heard that's good for them.
What are some?
TJ (26:49):
other trees that might benefit them besides that.
Philip (26:53):
They like pine trees.
They like loose bark.
That they like pine trees.
They like loose bark If youhave snags on your property and
they're not going to be a dangerto anybody.
You can leave your snags andbats like to roost in snags.
They do roost in a bunch ofdifferent types of trees and
different trees more than others.
If you have trees on yourproperty, just leave your trees
(27:14):
alone and more than likelyyou're going to have bats at
some point in time.
But shagbark hickory is areally good one to have, yeah.
TJ (27:21):
I got lots of it, so I've got a strong bat population
there as well.
Daniel (27:25):
Nice We've talked about how thick our trees are on
several podcasts.
For the Ozarks they're actuallytoo thick.
Do they like really woodedareas or do they like more open
areas?
Well, it depends on the species.
Philip (27:36):
We have cluttered, adapted species like your
smaller bats talking, like ourIndiana bat, northern long-eared
bat, our small-footed bat.
And then you have biggerspecies, a bigger body, that are
more open, adapted, like ourhoary bat, our red bat, our
braytail bat.
So, different species likedifferent areas.
The northern long-eared bat,it's called a gleaner.
(27:58):
The way it gets its prey is itgleans it off of plants, like
some sort of insect sitting on atree branch or something.
It'll just come and it'll pickit off that.
So yeah, depending on differentspecies.
Daniel (28:11):
Yeah, we've talked about different habitats for like
quail and turkey, and they needa little more open area.
Philip (28:18):
So we just kind of wondered how they play into that
.
Yeah, again, I can't go back tohow good a flyer's bats are.
They can fly really really welland their echolocation inside
they get around really good atnighttime.
So some of these bats can kickthrough some cluttered spaces
and some of them just like tohave an open floor so they can
just figure along like they want.
TJ (28:39):
Is there any habitat work you see going on these days that
is helpful for bats as well?
Because, like he's saying,we've talked to several people
who are saying we've got to thinour basal area in the forest to
reduce tree density.
Is that beneficial to bats ordo you think that's hurting the
population of bats?
Philip (28:54):
Again, it depends on your species.
Or you think that's hurting thepopulation of bats?
Again, it depends on yourspecies.
If we're talking about the moreendangered species, you don't
want to have it so fluttered towhere nothing can get through.
But having early successionalwouldn't be detrimental to the
smaller bats and having an openfloor isn't going to be
detrimental to any bats.
Just don't cut their wholeforest down and I think we'll be
(29:17):
all right.
Yeah.
Daniel (29:18):
It's just so thick right now, nothing even lives out
there.
You know, everything justpasses through.
Philip (29:23):
Yeah, no, you don't want to have a wall.
Nothing can get through.
They're going to fly over thetop of your woods or they're
going to fly your creeks orsomething.
Yeah, if they're just passingthrough, they'll get around your
property or they'll comethrough your property, going 14,
15 miles a night in nothing,wow, yeah.
Daniel (29:43):
You've talked about their eyesight several times, I
know.
Growing up as a kid I thoughtbats couldn't see, but they have
good eyesight also.
Philip (29:49):
Oh yeah, that whole saying you're blind as a bat.
No man, I wish I was as blindas a bat, because they can see
super good.
The studies that are out therethey show that bats can see
eight to ten times better thanhumans at night time.
So it's not just theirecholocation that gets them
around.
There's some species in Africathat really don't use
(30:10):
echolocation anymore.
They use more of their othersenses their eyesight, their
nose, and so these bats aroundhere they can see real well, do
you know where that came about?
Daniel (30:20):
blind as a bat, did they originally think they were
blind.
Philip (30:23):
I don't know.
I don't know where that onecame from.
I've never looked it up.
I'm sure there's.
Some saw bat flying intosomething and it's like oh well,
I don't know.
TJ (30:34):
Who knows?
So is there any habitat workthat we can do or anything that
we can plant to help that?
Do you think?
Philip (30:39):
Just don't take all the trees away.
If it's really thick, it's goodto work on it to clear that
understory to where animals canuse your property.
That's always going to beadvantageous.
That's why burning is the wayit is.
Even natural burns.
That's what they do.
They come through and theyclear the understory and then
that opens that wooded area upfor animals and other things to
(31:03):
come through and it brings alongother plant species as well.
There could be a seed bankthere of some really cool
natural wildflowers and you getrid of these things that are
taking the sunlight away fromyour floor.
You can get a really neatground sprout.
TJ (31:18):
So yeah, yeah, and that's benefiting insects, so I guess
you're benefiting bats by havingmore understory and cessational
growth.
Yeah.
Philip (31:25):
I mean if you can get that thick wall of stuff out
you're opening it up for a lotof stuff.
Yeah.
TJ (31:31):
Yeah.
Daniel (31:32):
So you've given us lots of information about bats.
How's the population?
I know we kind of touched onthis earlier.
Is it just the white nosethat's causing the issue, or is
it other things?
Philip (31:41):
Yeah, I don't think that we've really talked about the
white nose.
Daniel (31:44):
You had just touched it for just a second.
Philip (31:47):
All right.
So let's go into that a littlebit, because again, it's one of
those subjects that I don'tthink is put out into the larger
population.
People know about it, but dothey so?
White nose syndrome is causedby a fungus Pseudogemesis
destructans is the scientificname, something like that.
But anyways, it's a cold lovingfungus, so in the wintertime is
(32:10):
when it really grows.
Our bats hibernate in thewintertime and so that makes
them a target much like mold ona piece of bread.
This fungus started out at moldon a piece of bread.
This fungus started out at thisone little piece of bread, but
if you leave it too longundisturbed it's just going to
spread out through it, right?
Well, that's what this fungusdoes to bat colonies.
You could have a bat colony offour to 5,000 animals at the
(32:33):
beginning of winter and youcould have one focal bat, but by
the time winter's over it couldspread to pretty much the
entire colony.
Now, that's not the end of thebat, just right there, because
the fungus has to really getgoing.
But the bat has now got thatfungus on it.
They go into hibernation with acertain amount of body fat to
(32:55):
get them through.
Well, when the fungus reallytakes over, it gets under the
skin.
So these bats wake up duringthe wintertime and they really
start scratching and trying toget away from this itch.
We assume, because we see themitch, they're flying, they're
itching, they're scratching,they're using up all this fat
reserve that they have stored.
(33:16):
Well, they go outside theircave it's super cold, guess what
?
There's no insects, so theycan't replenish their body fat.
They go looking for water.
Well, guess what?
All the water's locked upbecause it's wintertime, so they
can't get their drink.
So they either end up on theoutside of their hibernation
cave, starving, freezing ordehydrated.
(33:36):
That's how the fungus takesover the bat, and we've had
caves like up in the Northeastwhere it really took foot in
2006.
Tens of thousands of bats inthis one particular cave, down
to almost zero Wow, so almost100% mortality through this cave
system.
That's devastating for anypopulation.
(33:59):
But these are small animals,slow reproducing animals, and so
a disease like this is theworst wildlife disease in human
history, something that humanshave actually witnessed.
It's the worst thing we've everseen.
Daniel (34:12):
So what do you do to combat it?
And where did it come from?
Why is it now a problem?
So what do?
Philip (34:17):
you do to combat it?
And where did it come from?
Why is it now a problem?
The hypothesis on where it camefrom is that it came from
Europe, maybe from a person thatwent caving in Europe and
brought it here, because thegenetics is really super close.
There's bats in Europe thathave this white fungus growing
on them as well, but they're notdying, and so the thought is
that these bats went throughtheir population decline due to
(34:40):
this fungus long, long time ago,something that humans did not
witness.
They've adapted, and theirgenetics have adapted to
withstand this fungus that getson them.
Our bats weren't raised withthis fungus, their bodies don't
know it, and so it's like aninvasive species that comes in,
or like some sort of epidemicpandemic that comes through and
(35:01):
it just wipes out.
It's in almost every stateexcept Florida, canadian
provinces, except BritishColumbia, and it's even made it
to Mexico.
Daniel (35:12):
Wow, Is there anything to kill it?
Spray on it or spray on them.
Philip (35:16):
Well, yeah, we can kill it.
409 kills it.
We have some really goodfungicides that'll kill it.
But the problem is cave systemsare super, super delicate.
There's fungus in cave systemsthat are nowhere else.
There's animals that are incave systems that are nowhere
else.
So you go, start spraying allthese different chemicals into a
(35:38):
delicate system.
You're going to kill the system.
Is it?
Destroy this system?
Save this and destroy that.
It's not a good situation.
Either way, there's some reallysmart people out there trying
to figure out how to save thisand not destroy that.
It's a puzzle, and it's a hardpuzzle to figure out because
you've got all these differentanimals going different places,
(36:00):
migrating hundreds of miles,hitting different caves along
the way, and then you have thehuman factor.
Humans spread white nose justas easy as bats.
Bats spread it to each other,we spread it different caves.
It's a super sticky spore andso humans can pick it up by
going into a cave super easy.
If they rub the wall or if theystep on something, they can
(36:23):
transmit the fungus from onecave system to a cave system
that's not had it before.
So there's some really gooddecontamination procedures on
the Fish and Wildlife websites.
It's also on the batconorgwebsite.
Not knocking cavers, becausecavers have found unknown
animals.
They found unknown passages.
They do some pretty crazy stuffand I don't know if you've been
(36:45):
deep in a cave.
It gets pretty crazy and deepin a cave.
But just decontaminate yourstuff and go through the
procedures to where you don'thave to spray these chemicals
into caves.
You spray them outside of thecaves and kill the fungus on the
outside and don't take it otherplaces with you.
So yeah, that's an importantpart is to know the steps on the
(37:06):
decontamination process.
TJ (37:08):
So you think that's.
The biggest threat that we'recurrently facing to bats is the
white nose syndrome.
Philip (37:13):
And habitat destruction, especially in like the tropics.
Here in the united states we'vegot some pretty good rules on
going out and just absolutelydestroying forests, but
unfortunately in south americaclear cutting these pristine
tropical forests that takes atoll on any animal, but right
now white nose is the problem ofour bats.
(37:36):
Yeah.
TJ (37:36):
Yep, I guess, if we're not careful though, we could do the
same thing other countries aredoing.
Philip (37:40):
Yeah, if we're not careful and if we don't keep a
solid habitat and solidecosystem for the bats, yeah, it
won't look good.
Yeah, right now the cavespecies are getting hit hard by
white nose and our forestspecies.
The biology of these speciescan be completely different.
The eastern rat bat it stays inthe woods all its life.
(38:04):
It has a fuzzy tail and it'spart of the Lazioeris genus,
kind of like a horibat.
They have really fuzzy tailsand so they can get up in the
forest floor, curl up with someleaves, curl their head up in
the fuzzy tail and they can juststay on the forest floor
through.
Curl up with some leaves, curltheir head up in the fuzzy tail
and they can just stay on theforest floor through the coldest
winters.
And so if we go destroying ourwoods, we've lost our cave bats
(38:25):
and we can't lose them all.
We've got to take care of ourwoods.
Daniel (38:30):
So if anybody wants to help bats, what can they do?
Philip (38:34):
Learn.
Listen to podcasts about bats,go on Google, look at some bats.
Learn about bats.
Put bat houses up when you goto a cave decon afterwards Read
the steps to them, because it'sreally important that you get it
right.
When you come outside of thecave, you don't want to carry it
to your vehicle, to where youcan spread it, so learn the
(38:57):
steps before you go caving.
Teach the kids.
If you see a bat on the horizonat nighttime, show a kid.
People need to understand justhow important bats are, and
we're not there yet.
There's not enough people likeme to go around to teach kids
every you, you know, maybe thatawareness is the greatest
(39:18):
conservation tool we have.
TJ (39:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
Philip (39:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
Daniel (39:22):
And I think that's what we're trying to do here is just
bring it to light with thedifferent species and protecting
them, and that it's importantto protect them.
No matter what's going on inthe government.
Our forest systems and ouranimals are important and I
think the more people you getinvolved with that and enjoying
the animals and outside, that'sthe best defense against any
kind of crazy changes.
Philip (39:42):
Yeah, man, no matter what's going on politically,
whether it's South America, inthe United States, in Europe,
animals are still using ourwoods, animals are still using
caves.
There's a lot going on outsideof our world.
There's a lot of people thatjust don't understand what is
out there.
Knowledge is the best.
Daniel (40:02):
Yeah, be curious about it.
Philip (40:03):
Yeah, just be curious about what's going on.
The more that humans canobserve animals doing really
cool stuff, maybe we can spreadthat awareness.
Hey man, this bat eats 4,000mosquitoes a night.
4,000 mosquitoes that awareness, hey man, this bat eats 4 000
mosquitoes a night 4 000mosquitoes.
And then we multiply that bythe bats that are out there
eating, that's prettysignificant mosquito control.
(40:24):
Putting stories out like that,stories out like hey man, bats
provide farmers with about 53billion dollars a year in
savings.
You know, yeah, just cool FYIs.
Little tidbits of neatinformation that people can
glean from Batch might change aperson's mind.
TJ (40:43):
Yeah, I think so.
Philip (40:44):
And that's what I'm about, and that's what's cool
about you guys.
Y'all can change a person'smind.
Yeah, that's what we're goingfor for sure.
TJ (40:52):
Would you say there are any other good resources besides the
website you mentioned thatpeople could look at books,
maybe that you suggest, ororganizations?
Philip (40:59):
The Game and Fish here in the state Blake Sasse.
He's a really good batbiologist.
He's with the Game and Fish,the Arkansas Bats.
It's a guidebook to the bats ofArkansas.
It's a really good one and it'sfor the layperson.
It's not heavy on scientificinformation.
It's just a really good bookand you can find that at most
Forest Service District offices.
(41:21):
There's a lot of scientificinformation out there.
Of course, you can do a GoogleScholar on bats and you'll pull
up a crazy amount of articles.
Daniel (41:32):
What gives you hope when it comes to the future of bat
population and bat conservation?
Philip (41:39):
hope when it comes to the future of bat population and
bat conservation.
So one thing that I've noticedgoing throughout different
schools here, especially locally, these kids are curious.
It might be odd generations ofkids, but the kids that I went
out and talked to about thesebats and about different animals
, they've been curious.
That's what gives me hope isthe curiosity of the next
generation that's coming up.
(41:59):
There's some smart kids outthere and it's always impressive
.
I leave like the last 15 to 20minutes or so of my
presentations open for anyquestions.
I get some really really goodquestions and that gives me hope
is that these kids are gonnacontinue to ask these really
cool questions and hopefullysome of the things that I've
(42:21):
taught maybe triggers thatcuriosity in the future to where
these kids will take up themantle of the next bat
researcher yeah you know,
TJ (42:29):
I think the kids coming up are what I look forward to, yeah
okay, I think the last one Ihave for you is just if somebody
wants to see bats in arkansas,where do you tell them to go to?
Philip (42:42):
well, you can always go to blanchard springs cavern.
You can always see at least atricolor bat down there or, like
I said, um, just a larger bodyof water or creek or river or
something.
At dusk, right when the sun'sabout to break, the horizon go
low, so they come out and thefirst thing they want to do is
get a drink.
You can see some bats doingsome really really neat
(43:04):
acrobatics.
It's just really really cool towatch.
So if you just look out acrossthe horizon at dusk, you'll see
them, and it's really a treat towatch them sit there and play
and to eat their insects.
TJ (43:15):
Yeah, yeah, we really appreciate you coming out and
talk to us.
Man, it's been good.
Philip (43:20):
Good, all right, guys, man, I'm glad y'all looked me up
and invited me down.
TJ (43:23):
Yeah, man yeah, we appreciate it all right.
Daniel (43:25):
Thanks so much coming on .
Yeah, no worries hey, if thisepisode made you think of
someone, would you share it withthem real quick?
That's one of the best ways tohelp the show grow.
TJ (43:38):
Well, folks, that wraps up another episode of the Natural
Obsession podcast.
As always, we'd like to thankyou for listening.
If you'd like to hear moreepisodes, get in contact with us
or learn more about Daniel andI and why we do this, visit our
website at natobco.
That's N-A-T-O-B dot C-O.
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