Part 3 of animals(bats). Vampires not included.

Bats. I look forward to the Science File in the LA Times each Saturday! It’s only one section of a page, (and this weekend it’s only ONE item, bummer) but it’s usually an interesting little roundup of natural history, physics, and other tidbits. Sad news here, that bats are dying of a mysterious illness. The Times doesn’t have a very good link, so here’s a better one from Boston.

Bats are dying off by the thousands as they hibernate in caves and mines around New York and Vermont, sending researchers scrambling to find the cause of a mysterious condition dubbed “white nose syndrome.” [snip]

The bat die-off has some eerie similarities with “colony collapse disorder,” the baffling affliction that began decimating honeybee colonies years ago.

I love bats, for the good they do (and it’s all good) and for the ideas circling around them. I’ve always wanted to go to Texas? or wherever those huge colonies live, to see millions of them darken the sky at sunset each day. (I think I heard one here, but haven’t seen any.)

This is a bat gif.

When I first began running in gp, I noticed very few other runners and a big black fly (buffalo gnat) problem. Connected? Maybe, to the fact that they get in your nose and your eyes and your mouth, (if you’re that type of runner), and bite your ankles if they can’t do anything else. (And if you recall, a few years ago there was a health concern about some kind of sleeping sickness or death from black flies. In any case, they can bite cattle to death.) So I asked around for a solution.

As I’ve said before, I don’t get how or if gp is managed. There is no one, or no department, connecting animal, insect, trees, people, health of the park. Do they need a biologist? Or an environmentalist, or just someone with a Natural History background? Maybe even an occasional consultant? Just SOMEONE to connect the dots, because no one seems to have a clue on anything besides what kind of grass to grow on the golf course. I started to call the park offices to ask who to talk to, and there was…no one. They usually shoved me over to tp, who had some kind of urban forestry background. Maybe. When speaking to me she was dishonest about a couple of things, so I’m just going by what she told me. (Now she’s head of forestry for Glendale. So how’s that working for you, guys?)

It seemed obvious to me, as an amateur bird watcher, that what the park needs is simply birds, or bats, to eat the bugs. Is that solution too easy? Back east they do teach something about the environment and the interactions of nature (cue to sing )

Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way? What’s the matter with kids, to-day?

and everyone knows that to attract the rather rare bluebird, which is the farmer’s friend and your friend, too, if you have mosquitoes, you put up bluebird houses, and they will come. They make purple martin houses and bat houses, too. Theresa didn’t know anything about birds, bats or trees to attract them, but she was aware that there was a black fly problem. “They come from the LA River on the other side of the freeway.” Um, I knew that. One early spring evening I was driving on that side of the freeway and suddenly those flies plastered my front windshield and got all over the engine vents. It was a little frightening.

So, no help there. I asked lba about it. No help, no info, no solution. I asked some Rangers about it, and they said the park’s position was not to interfere with nature. Hmm, so how does putting out the recent fire fit in there? How about 6 weeks a year when DWP takes over the park from dusk on to have the most polluted, smelly trail of cars you’ve ever seen, to see their Christmas lights? How about the expensive grass you plant and tend and trees you trim for the all important gp Golf Course?

Au natural, indeed. With this new disease eradicating bat colonies, the park should put up some damn bird houses and bat houses, which cost practically nothing, and hurt no one, and at least try it out.

Full disclosure: I collect bat charms and pendants and also like some vampire movies, but this in no way inspired or influenced this post. Also, I love caves, although I haven’t been to any caves in SoCal yet, not even the Batcave. But wasn’t that part in Tom Sawyer scary, when they got lost in the cave maze?!