Bat Spirals and Wildlife High-Rises

categories: Animals in the Blogs roundups, Environment and Global Warming, Wildlife/FreeLiving Animals

Published August 05, 2009 @ 10:34AM PT

Emily over at the Stop Global Warming blog has an interesting post up titled "Architecture for Bats." Before beginning a brief discussion of the plight of bats--and the recently designed Bat Spiral habitat--Emily asks, "As we continue to transform the climate at a blistering pace, what responsibilities do we have to help other species adapt and thrive to the fast-warming world?"

And her post reminds me of another post I included in a mid-June roundup: "Building with Animals in Mind," from Glenn of Liberation BC, about proposed plans in England to build high rises for urban animals.

Glenn writes,

What I really like about it is that these people are thinking about building with animals in mind. And not just how to keep them out of our spaces or how to build to hold them, but rather building for the animals, so that they can have habitat within our habitat.

That architects and planners are thinking about this gives me hope that we might actually start planning our spaces so that the other inhabitants of the earth can exist here too.

Check out both posts. Interesting stuff.

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Comments (3)

The bluebird population has made a remarkable recovery with the help of man-made boxes. Their numbers were depressed because European starlings were appropriating their nesting sites, so bluebird boxes were made with an opening too small for a starling but just right for a bluebird. Wood ducks have also benefited from a similar program.

But how far should we go? If we put a lot of energy into animal-friendly urban habitats, what effect might that have on the motivation of people to not abuse the environment? "Oh, we don't have to worry about bat habitats -- we built them a nice big spiral, didn't we?"

Some animals need only for us to leave them alone, such as in the case of Pale Male, the redtailed hawk living near Central Park in NYC who hunts mice, rats, and pigeons. Residents of a nearby apartment building on which PM was nesting had the nest torn down because they didn't like pigeon bones littering their path, and they altered the building with spikes so PM couldn't build another nest. After a public outcry, an accommodation was reached and PM returned. http://www.palemale.com/

Anyway, I guess it's like anything else: we make a mess and in fixing the mess we often make another. I just don't have confidence in human beings not to screw things up even more!

Posted by Jenifer Lewis on 08/05/2009 @ 11:26AM PT
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That bat spiral is awesome - totally puts my bat house to shame!

(Bats eat hundreds+ of mosquitoes a day, so a bat house on or near your house can help keep bug "pests" at bay.)

Posted by Kelly Garbato on 08/05/2009 @ 12:52PM PT
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I would really love to build a bat house in my back yard. That and a mason bee house.

It's good to remember that live in the world with animals – and we're going to be increasingly moving in with them – so finding ways to build our habitats in harmony seems very important to me.

Posted by Glenn Gaetz on 08/05/2009 @ 10:16PM PT
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Stephanie is an independent animal rights advocate, a vegan, a tree-hugging environmentalist, and a freelance editor and writer. She lives in St. Louis with an aging corgi-lab and an adolescent rescued pit bull.