Tropical bats are the key pollinators of such important food plants such as bananas, mangoes, breadfruit, dates, avocados and figs. At one time health risks were associated with bats but histoplasmosis has never been found in Canadian bat colonies.
Bats do occassionally get rabies, but less frequently than foxes or skunks.
The bat symbol in China represents good luck and happiness. Certainly the beneficial qualities of bats have improved their image in recent years. Bat populations have fallen in North America. The bats lost from just the two largest roosts would have consumed 600,000 lb of insects each night. Twenty species of bats are known from Canada of which eight have been recorded in our local county.