TERRESTRIAL biologist Damion Whyte has initiated a second bat survey aimed at challenging the belief among many Jamaicans that the flying mammals are scary and evil.

“For wider Jamaica, they see bats but they don’t know the services that they offer, and providing this information like going out, taking pictures and showing people will make them a bit more concerned about it because, as you know, Jamaicans believe that rat bats are going to bite you and they are evil, but in fact, we have some bats which are pretty cute,” Whyte told the Sunday Observer.

He said the survey, which is set to start on January 15 and run until the end of February, aims to investigate the factors influencing bats and their well-being in relation to environmental conditions.

The first survey was conducted over two weeks, between March and April last year, during which Whyte and his fellow scientists found that the Jamaican Flower bat (phyllonycteris aphylla), categorised as Critically Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List and which was known to inhabit the Stony Hill Cave in Portland, was also found in Green Grotto Cave in Trelawny and Rock Spring Cave (also known as River Head Cave) in St Mary.

“I am part of a group of local and international researchers. We don’t have many people who work on bats but we love bats and we know that Jamaica has 21 species and of this number, five species are endemic, found nowhere else in the world, and we have limited information like where we find them. We know that things are happening to them and a lot of people are going into the caves to get guano [bat droppings] and by getting it they scare these animals. So we know that things are happening but we do not have a lot of experts,” added Whyte.

While expressing concern about the safety of bats in Jamaica, Whyte argued that it is important that Jamaicans consider the importance of these animals and their habitat as it is essential to strike a balance between development and their safety.

“Imagine the certain activities that we are doing that are cutting down their numbers. That is going to affect the pollination, it is going to affect the spreading of the seeds and it will affect some of the work it does with insects,” said Whyte as he described the contribution bats make to the environment.

He said his group is not only looking to do more scientific research through this study, but they want to use this opportunity to educate more Jamaicans on how certain environmental practices may affect these creatures.

“It’s not just an academic thing. We want the community to appreciate bats…our work allows us to update and give agencies like NEPA [National Environment and Planning Agency] information about the bats in terms of their numbers, their health, and measures needed to protect them,” Whyte said.

“We have a situation where we do not know what is happening to the caves. People are going in, collecting guano, but because they are scared of the bats, they light fires and smoke them out. This impacts the bats, it kills them and prevents them from returning to the caves. So this study will provide that type of information to help protect them,” Whyte explained.

University of Toronto PhD student Phillip Oelbaum, who is also a main partner with Whyte on the survey, told the Sunday Observer that this is an important research for Jamaica’s ecology.

According to Oelbaum, the plan is to explore 30 different caves, researching the factors influencing the presence of bats at these sites and analyse variations in cave conditions from one location to another.

“So, I am looking to see if, in caves where we only find one out of the four different species that eat nectar, they are able to go out into nature and feed on a whole different range of things because there aren’t these other species of bats competing. In the case where we find all four [in one space] how much are they overlapping; are there some species that are better at eating insects than others,” said Oelbaum.

“We are also looking to see how land use might affect that [and] how features within the cave might affect that; how disturbance from people going in to harvest guano and leaving a bunch of trash around the entrances, or how close it is to the road. So we are working on a lot of different angles,” added Oelbaum.

He said despite all the scientific benefits that are possible from the survey, the researchers want to show the importance of bats to the everyday life of Jamaicans.

“For the vast majority of caves and the vast majority of these bat roosts, there has been little work done and little work published. Most have been visited by people like the Jamaica Cave Organisation and NEPA and they retain their own records on that, but very little is out there. So we are working to bring this into the broader literature and we are working to make the case that Jamaica is a very special place to be doing bat research,” said Oelbaum.