A Yuma bat hangs above Felton-area kids during the Bat Lady’s talk at the library. Lucjan Szewczyk/Press-Banner
Monique Smith Lee, the self-styled Bat Lady, delivered that message to several dozen youngsters and their parents at Felton Branch Library recently, as she does year-round at libraries and schools from San Francisco to Monterey.
Lee is a bat educator and rehabilitator and a director of the California Bat Conservation Fund of Santa Cruz, but some of her young audience members knew just about as much as she had to tell them.
"Do you know what echolocation is?" she inquired. Six hands
shot up.
That’s the proper name for bats’ sonar-like ability to detect obstacles in the dark by sending out ultrasonic sound waves and letting them bounce off walls or other objects.
The Earth accommodates 1,148 species of bats, and 13 of them call Santa Cruz County home, Lee said. The most recently discovered species was found just last year in the Philippines.
James Hilberath, 9, of Felton, gazes at a pallid bat held by Monique Smith Lee, aka the Bat Lady, at Felton Branch Library. Lucjan Szewczyk/Press-Banner
In answer to several inquisitive children, Lee explained that there are vampire bats — but they drink blood only from birds and non-human mammals.
"They don’t like human blood," she said.
Despite bats’ value to farmers and gardeners, their population in the U.S. is dropping, she said. Destruction of their forest habitats and use of pesticides on crops are the biggest causes, she said.
"It’s time to start protecting our bats," she stressed.
One way is to erect a bat house on the east or south side of a building, about 20 feet up, if possible. Bat houses are usually sold in the same places as birdhouses.
What if you find an injured bat? Don’t touch it, Smith advised, but call her at 408-506-7167 or Native Animal Rescue at 462-0726.
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