No, those are not birds that fly around Jesse Hall at night. And you are not imagining that high-pitched noise when you walk past parking garages. Oh, and just to keep things straight, this includes the bunch that has made darting through the lights at Stankowski Field a game.
But yes, they are bats, and yes, MU seems to be their home.
Animal Control responded to Johnston Hall on Sept. 2 when a bat flew to the fourth floor of the building. Caught on video by students, the bat flew back and forth between a locked door and the hallway elevator before the peer advisers were notified. One student said the PAs told him there had been bats in the building before, and they still are unsure how they get in.
Unless a bat is doing damage to property, it is illegal to kill it, Missouri state law states. This shouldn’t worry students because Missouri bats do not feed on blood, said Robert Pierce of the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Services.
If that wasn’t reassuring, perhaps this will be: Of the nine commonly found bat species in Missouri, only three of them frequently roost, or gather to rest during the day, in buildings. This small selection — the big brown bat, little brown bat and evening bat — allows researchers and members of wildlife departments to focus on their declining populations.
Part of the reason for decreasing numbers is destruction of their natural habitats, such as the caves at the Ozarks, which could justify why so many bats have taken shelter near campus. A disease called White-Nose Syndrome has also killed more than six million bats nationwide since being identified in 2006. The Missouri Department of Conservation reported cases of the disease in two caves in Lincoln County this April.
After reading into the issue, I have found this is not some sort of “blessing in disguise,” but a real concern for Missouri farmers, whose crops are safe from insects due to them being a bat’s diet. Ann Froschauer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said bats supply about $22 billion a year in “ecological services,” affirming these bats are crucial to the state’s economy.
It’s understandable people forget bats are part of something larger than spooking us at night because rabies has continued to be a frequently talked about (and often joked about) public health hazard. And these warnings are not all misleading — there is still an annual average of 700 to 800 cases, Pierce and Clawson reported.
Studies show bat species, like those found on campus, will bite in self-defense. To avoid injury or contracting disease it is crucial whoever handles the bats wears gloves to steer clear from direct contact. In this case, I would have to say the situation in Johnston was handled quite well.
In an effort to control the bat population on campus, we must ensure bats have somewhere else to go — another push to eliminate habitat destruction. Short-term measures such as simply killing all the bats on campus are obviously illegal and detrimental to Missouri agriculture, so as we become more aware of the species on campus, we need to devise a long-term strategy to relocate the bats safely.