However, that disturbance would have caused the bat to burn off two to four weeks of its fat supply and it could starve to death before the insects come out in early spring. I'm going to recommend that this particular wild cave remain closed from mid-October to April each year so that the hibernating bats won't be disturbed by cavers. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary Stopping the significant population decline we have witnessed in bats over the last three years at Great Basin National Park has become a priority. In some colonies, we have seen a 50 percent reduction during this short time period. These declines worry us for many reasons.
Bats can eat tons of insects a night in a given area, some of which are pests that plague farmers.
The little brown bat can eat as many as 600 mosquitoes in an hour. Because the loss of bats could cause a greatly increased demand for chemical pesticides and would harm human economies, we have ample reasons to protect this small flying mammal. Doing bat surveys is just one of my duties. Much of my work centers around Lehman Caves , where I try to offset the impacts of the public visiting the delicate, nonrenewable cave environment. Each visitor to the cave brings foreign material into this easily impacted resource, such things as lint, dust, hair, skin flakes, and shoe rubber.