Bats have a serious image problem.
Associated with Halloween, vampires and rabies, the flying mammals ― which, by the way, are not rodents ― tend to scare people or gross them out.
But they shouldn’t, says BatBnB co-founder Christopher Rannefors. The company’s aim is to make bat houses — wooden structures that homeowners can mount on a wall or nearby tree ― as common as birdhouses. Bats, which live in most parts of the world, play a crucial role in the ecosystem. Most species help keep populations of night-flying insects, like mosquitoes and certain agricultural pests, under control.
“A colony of 150 big brown bats in Indiana, a number that could live in a medium-sized bat house, was shown to consume enough cucumber beetles to prevent them from laying up to 33 million eggs in a single summer. These beetles can be a gardener’s nightmare,” said Merlin Tuttle, the founder of Bat Conservation International who has been working with BatBnB to make sure the houses are suited to bats’ needs.
Read more at Huffpost
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