KNOWN for its natural beauty, magnetic culture, and contribution to music and sports on the global stage, Jamaica might very well be able to add bat conservation to its reputation.

Yes, bat — not ‘ratbat’ — conservation, since the mammal is more closely related to horses and whales than it is to rats.

Dr Jon Flanders — bat expert and director of Endangered Species Interventions at Bat Conservation International (BCI) and who is responsible for leading initiatives that address the organisation’s global conservation priorities — has hailed the Caribbean country as a vanguard for bat conservation.

He said Jamaica’s effort to ensure the survival of two critically endangered species — the Jamaican flower bat and the Jamaican greater funnel-eared bat — is the “best conservation story” of his more than 20-year career spanning multiple countries, including the United Kingdom, China, and Japan.

“The thing with conservation is that it can be hard if you aren’t willing to invest the time and the resources into a project,” Flanders told the Jamaica Observer in an interview.

“And for me, the work in Jamaica is the epitome of what good conservation looks like because this wasn’t a BCI project in any way, shape or form — this started well beyond us, with everyone collecting this information,” he added. “We were able to get across the finish line because we worked with all the partners and community members.”

Now Jamaica’s success story is fuelling interest from museums in Fiji, Brazil, and Kenya, Flanders said. The bat expert also pointed out that the project is a global one, as learnings from Jamaica are being utilised elsewhere, as the country “is setting a milestone of what can be done”.

The collaborative work — which has seen BCI working with National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and, by extension, The University of the West Indies (The UWI); Jamaica Caves Organisation; Natural History Museum of Jamaica; Institute of Jamaica; Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment, and Sport; as well as residents of Polly Ground in St Catherine and Boundbrook in Portland — has resulted in the Jamaican flower bat and the greater funnel-eared bat being saved from extinction and the launch of a six-month-long exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Jamaica in downtown Kingston.

The critically endangered status of the two bats — which are endemic to Jamaica — is due to them facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.

St Clair Cave in St Catherine — home to more than two million bats — is said to be the only site at which the Jamaican greater funnel-eared bat has been recorded. At the same time, Stony Hill Cave in Portland is where Jamaican flower bats were rediscovered in 2010 after being thought extinct for more than 20 years.

Flanders told the Sunday Observer that there are an estimated 250 Jamaican greater funnel-eared bats left and that no one has been able to photograph them, since it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“We know it’s there through some, unfortunately, carcasses that have been found on the ground over the years, but we’ve never been able to physically catch one,” admitted Flanders.

Residents of the nearby Polly Ground also had their sights set on creating a Green Grotto Caves-like attraction at St Clair Cave; however, through dialogue, Flanders said the same locals were transformed into bat advocates, foregoing their eco-tourism type plans when they realised they are the guardians of the last known site for the Jamaican greater funnel-eared bat and that St Clair Cave is one of the most important caves for bats in the entire Caribbean.

While pointing out that it is difficult to get population counts in caves that are mixed roosts, as is the case with Stony Hill Cave in Portland, Flanders guesstimates that there are between 2,000 and 3,000 Jamaican flower bats on the island.

“Now we have records of it using at least seven caves across Jamaica in healthy numbers, spanning the last 50 to 100 years, but, one by one, all these caves have been lost. Guano harvesting, disturbance, [and] habitat loss surrounding the caves have all been a crucial component of that,” the bat expert told the Sunday Observer.

In January last year a team of researchers found Jamaican flower bats at two other caves — Green Grotto and Rock Spring Caverns. This was reported by Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation.

Since 2018, BCI and NEPA have been working together to ensure the long-term protection of the two bats and other threatened species on the island.

NEPA Environmental Officer Damany Calder, speaking in mid-June at the launch of bat exhibition, Guardians of the Night: Celebrating the Wonderful World of Bats! at the Institute of Jamaica in downtown Kingston, shared that as a sea turtle specialist, his first exposure to bats outside of reading about them or seeing them eat a fruit was when he began working at NEPA.

Calder was not a bat specialist but the all-hands-on-deck approach of the unit resulted in him going out in the field to support his colleagues. This led to him joining them as they mapped bat populations at different caves across the island.

Almost half of the 21 species of bats found in Jamaica use caves, so when researchers and members of the Jamaica Cave Organisation would go out spelunking — or cave exploring — they would record what they noticed.

“What was noticed was [that] the Jamaican flower bat was no longer seen where it was previously recorded, so alarm bells went off; we need to find this bat,” Calder said.

After the bat was located in Stony Hill Cave it became the linchpin of the collaboration with BCI, said Calder.

The Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA), which sets the rules and regulations for environmental protection, considered leasing the land to protect it, but priorities shifted. BCI later entered the picture amid its global quest to identify critically endangered species and its efforts to try and stop their extinction.

According to Calder, at the time, the BCI team was looking at the critically endangered, Jamaican, greater funnel-eared bat. That initial enquiry led to the Jamaica flower bat being added to the conservation project.

That partnership, which Flanders told the Sunday Observer has amounted to a BCI investment of at least US$750,000 since 2018, has resulted in multiple trips to Stony Hill and St Clair caves, the erection of predator-proof fencing, the purchase of Stony Hill Cave and the land surrounding it, and the exchange of knowledge and the gifting of equipment to NEPA which is responsible for implementing and enforcing NRCA’s rules.

Flanders said the investment has been significant but worth it to protect two critically endangered bat species.

The bat expert shared that he watched footage captured over 87 nights at Stony Hill Cave, showing cats catching and killing 28 Jamaican flower bats, which drove home the need for the predator-proof fencing to minimise cats getting into the cave.

Now, the collaborators are looking at the foraging routes to protect some of those lands. Flanders also told the
Sunday Observer that the likely next step for BCI as a supporting partner is helping to install bat boxes.

Calder spoke to the relationship with Hope Gardens and The UWI at the exhibition launch event which saw the team installing bat detectors and bat boxes at the locations — a move which, he said, has been a journey of growing the local network of bat conservationists, enthusiasts and partnerships.

Flanders told the Sunday Observer that bat boxes have been effectively installed in Miami in the US, essentially creating roost spaces for displaced mammals.

In the meantime the bat exhibition — an educational showcase aimed at demystifying the world of bats — is set to run up to the end of the year.

One of the displays at the bat exhibition now open to the public at the Natural History Museum of Jamaica in downtown Kingston. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

Director of endangered species intervention at Bat Conservation International (BCI) Jon Flanders (left) highlights a feature of a bat exhibit titled Guardians of the Night: Celebrating Jamaica’s Remarkable Bats! during its launch on June 18 at the Natural History Museum of Jamaica in downtown Kingston. From second left, BCI Chief of Conservation and Global Strategy Kevin Pierson; Institute of Jamaica Executive Director Michele Creed-Nelson; chief technical director in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Gillian Guthrie; and National Environment and Planning Agency Chief Executive Officer Leonard Francis look on. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

A close-up of the Jamaican flower bat, which is endemic to the island and is considered critically endangered. (Photo: Angelo Soto-Centeno)

The Jamaican flower bat (Photo: Brock Fenton & Sherri Fenton)