FENTRESS, Texas (KXAN) — Troy Swift counted 397 bats swarming out of a tall home near San Marcos one evening. It was the most the pecan farmer had seen since the home had been built several years earlier.
The cloud of bats, mostly Mexican free-tailed and evening bats, is what Swift calls “the night shift.”
Employees of a sort at Swift River Pecans, the bats handle pests and, in exchange, Swift provides them a place to live.
“If I can use these bats to keep me under (a certain number of pests), then I don’t have to spray,” Swift said, while looking up at a row of bat houses. The houses, four in a row, some painted, some not, some tall, some squat, were all designed by famed bat conservationist Merlin Tuttle.
“The first house that he tested attracted over 100 bats in a week in which the temperature was between 95 and 105, so we’re very happy with that,” Dr. Tuttle said.
The executive director and founder of Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation said that he’s tested bat houses across the country in an effort to save the species and help farmers.
“They’ve been conservatively estimated to save farmers $1.4 billion annually in avoided crop losses,” Dr. Tuttle said.
Texas bats find a home
Bats are a big deal in Central Texas. Beneath the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin is the largest urban bat colony in the world. Caves throughout the region house bats, while others live in trees.
Despite all this, bats are in danger. “Bats are now the most endangered animals of America,” Dr. Tuttle said.
That’s where bat houses come in. The wooden boxes are designed to attract bats and give them a place to stay on farms and even in urban areas.
Past attempts at bat housing in Texas have seen trouble. Dr. Tuttle said that extreme temperature swings have seen bats avoiding the homes.
However, cypress trees on Swift’s property are used in his homes. The porous nature of the trees provides excellent insulation.
“He’s had almost 100% occupancy of his bat houses despite the fluctuating temperatures here in Texas,” Dr. Tuttle said.
Dr. Tuttle said that Swift’s houses have been the most successful of all his experiments in the United States.
Flying insect eaters
Besides counting the bats, Swift keeps track of what they eat and where they live. He has several sets of bat houses on his property. The bats typically rotate between them.
Plastic cones beneath the houses, designed to keep out snakes, collect bat droppings. Swift collects the guano and sends it off to a lab.
“(We) put it in these little plastic tubes with a substance called RNA later in it, which preserves DNA, and we send it to a lab at Northern Arizona University called Species from Feces,” Swift said.
“The bats from his houses have been shown through genetic typing to be consuming at least 200 species of insects, including many of the worst crop pests,” Dr. Tuttle said.
He believes many bats are born in the houses and then return later to give birth. He’s seen the number of bats rise from a few dozen to nearly four hundred over four years.
Swift hopes to attract more bats to eat more insects and limit the amount of pesticides he’ll need to use.
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