By Crystal Garcia
TERRE HAUTE — Ruth Beckes wasn’t sure what to expect Saturday when she attended the Second Annual Indiana Bat Fest, but said she was impressed with what she did find.
Beckes was one of more than 100 people who listened to field ecologist Rob Mies of the Organization for Bat Conservation speak about bats and walk three different bats around the room at Indiana State University’s Hulman Memorial Student Union.
“It was wonderful,” Beckes, of Flatrock, Ill., said about Mies presentation. She attended the festival with her daughter and some friends. They heard about it from her daughter’s teacher Vanessa Midgett, who also attended the festival.
Midgett, of Robinson, Ill., said she enjoyed listening to all the experts speak about bats, but liked that she could still recommend it to her fourth and fifth grade students because she knew there would be things for them to enjoy.
One of her students, Bryan Cross, 10, of Oblong, Ill., said he liked seeing the live bats.
“It was cool,” he said.
Aside from showing the bats, Mies spoke about what kinds of creatures bats are and debunked many myths people have about bats such as they’re blind; they have rabies; they get caught in human hair; and they’re dirty.
Most bats have better eyesight than humans and none of them is blind, he said. Very few of them have diseases such as rabies, especially in the United States because so many people have their pets vaccinated, Mies said.
Bats also are very clean animals who don’t make nests in human hair or intentionally get caught in it.
They are the only mammals that can fly, live between 20 to 30 years, eat between 2,000 to 5,000 insects a night and pollinate plants and spread fruit seeds in tropical rain forests, he said. There are more than 1,100 species of bats, but the animal is endangered.
“Very few people know how crucial they are,” Mies said after the presentation, noting that the most important thing people can do to help is put up a bat house because in urban settings there aren’t any dead trees for them to live in and it’s better than living in attics.
Last year 1,250 people attended the Bat Fest, said John O. Whitaker Jr., director of ISU’s Center for North American Bat Research and Conservation and ecology professor. Organizers hope at least 2,000 people attended this year, he said.
“It’s a great way to educate the public,” Whitaker said about why the event is important. “People don’t know much about them and are afraid of them when they shouldn’t be.”
It was 14-year-old Derrick Baker’s first time attending the Bat Fest, who met organizers’ goal by learning things about bats he didn’t know before.
He said he learned a couple of things such as that vampire bats are small and some bats drop fruit seeds. Baker of Indianapolis thought vampire bats were large because that’s how they appear in movies, he said.
“It’s pretty interesting,” he said about the Bat Fest. “I like encountering new things.”
Other presentations at the event were about bats of Indiana, Michigan and the world as well as bat houses and artificial roosts.
Educational and environmental exhibits were set up by Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Reclamation, Indiana Karst Conservancy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, ISU, Organization for Bat Conservation, Indiana State Museum, Bat Conservation International, Eagle Scouts, Ouabaches Land Conservancy and Paula Warfield.
Crystal Garcia can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or crystal.garcia@tribstar.com.
