Bats are often misunderstood as “flying rats” – undesirable pests that aren’t welcome in the yard. Yet bats can be very beneficial and helpful to the lawn and garden, and make time spent in the yard more comfortable and enjoyable. Attracting bats to your yard is a great way to be hospitable to these amazing fliers and enjoy all the benefits they bring.
Bats are flying mammals, and there are more than 1,400 bat species around the world, with approximately 45 bat species found in the United States and Canada. While these creatures have an undeserved dark reputation associated with horror movies, vampires, and chiroptophobia – fear of bats – they actually provide a great many benefits wherever they are found.
Many bats are voracious insect-eaters, feeding on beetles, moths, mosquitos, and other flying insects. Because bats have hearty appetites and one bat might eat as many as 5,000 insects in a single night, they provide excellent pest control for logging, forestry, agriculture, gardening, and landscaping, which saves money because of less need for chemical pesticides. Furthermore, strong bat populations can reduce disease transmission as they keep biting insects under better control, lowering outbreaks of diseases such as West Nile virus, Zika virus, and malaria.
A wide number of bats also feed on nectar and fruit, and as they feed, they assist pollination of critical plants, including food crops. Bananas, agave, cashews, avocados, and cacao (the primary ingredient in chocolate) all depend on bat pollination, and active bats around these crops improve plant health and increase productive yields. More than 80 medicines are derived from plants pollinated by bats, and bats also disperse seeds to spread new plants and regenerate habitats.
Even after eating, bats are helpful. Bat feces, called guano, are rich in nitrogen and make excellent fertilizer. In areas where large bat colonies roost, guano may be harvested periodically as a natural fertilizer, helping agriculture even more.
Finally, simply studying bats can provide great insights that can be adapted for our own uses. Bat flight patterns can help with studies of air currents and flight dynamics, while studying bats’ echolocation has helped develop navigational aids for visually impaired individuals.
With so many benefits coming from bats, it’s a great idea to welcome these fliers to the yard. Fortunately, just a few easy tricks can make a yard much more bat-friendly.
Even while you begin attracting bats to your yard, it is important to be sure these guests don’t make themselves at home where you don’t want them. Use hardware cloth or dense metal mesh to block openings into your attic, chimney, garage, garden sheds, or other spaces such as soffits or dryer vents where bats might seek shelter but where it isn’t as safe for them to roost. This will prevent any inadvertent conflicts in a bat-friendly yard, and will ensure the bats can visit without becoming unwanted pests.
Bats can be much more beneficial than many people realize, and attracting bats is simple once you understand these mammals’ needs and how to meet them.
