Bats

 

A few months ago, I was at a group meeting with the Chief of the Natural Resource Conservation Service, a branch of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.  (NRCS started after the Dust Bowl, which has a new Ken Burns documentary this Nov. 18-19! I've spent my whole life being uninterested in the Dust Bowl, until last year.  Now I am fascinated). 

My point is that at the NRCS meeting we all introduced ourselves and two people at the meeting were from the bat lobby.  It had a more official name, but basically they worked for the "bat lobby." Wow.  I thought.  I am so glad that I work on a multitude of environmental issues, and that my job does not focus day-to-day on bats.  "Bats are nature's insecticide," they said. 

For many months, my attitude was "Ha ha ha.  Bat lobby." However, the last two months or so, I feel like I keep running into bat issues and bat media.  My organization has been working on bat mitigation.  I keep seeing stories about sick bats.  Bat diseases.  The Nature Conservancy had a whole profile on artificial bat caves, "a radical idea to save America's bats."  What is the deal with bats?

Well, I don't have a large lesson to articulate in this post, but just wanted to say, "OK, bats.  I'm intrigued.  I'm paying attention to your issues now.  Kind of." Maybe I'll post more when I learn more.  I guess the bat lobby broke through to me.  Dang.