BEST EFFECTIVE PESTICIDES FOR BATS CONTROL IN KENYA
BEST EFFECTIVE PESTICIDES FOR BATS CONTROL IN KENYA
After rodents, they are the most numerous mammals on earth. African bats fall into two major categories: large fruit bats and smaller, insect-eating bats, neither of which attacks people. In addition to a difference in size between the two types, there is a great variation in the extent and details of the wings, which are formed by the naked membrane of skin that extends from the neck to the wrist and between the fingers, and finally to the tail. Wing shapes vary from species to species. Usually, the swift fliers have long, narrow wings while the slow fliers have broad, rounded ones.
The bones of the hand that support the wing membrane are unusually long. The hind legs are rotated 180 degrees at the hip joint, so the knee flexes backward rather than forward. This arrangement does not hamper the bat when it is perched but rather helps it push off from the roost for a quick getaway. They are very agile even on land, scuttling quickly over objects and squeezing their bodies through small openings.
Safe Use of Pesticides For Bats
What’s an important part of our living world that we don’t perceive? Lots. Take bats, for example. Bats are all around us in Kenya, and yet we don’t we know them as well as we know others. It might be because bats are nocturnal; but it’s also because the human ear cannot detect much of their communication. Most bats in Kenya send and receive sound at a frequency of 20 kHz (kilohertz) — beyond the hearing range of humans. Bats teach us to stay humble about what we know — and don’t know — and to keep learning about how to be good relatives to our fellow living beings. Learning as much as we can about bats benefits us all. To know them is to truly love them and understand our surroundings just a little bit better. Bats for example can easily eat 600 mosquitos in one hour. So its clear that using pesticides which destroys the aquatic food chain, including mosquito larva, is never wise. Its sheer hubris to think we can manage and balance nature better that she herself has learned to do over Kenya. Nurturing and restoring habitat is the first thing we should think of to be good relatives to our kin. Like our kin we should learn how to better seal our homes (like bees) and protect our own bodies rather than trying approaches that never work in the long run. For example If you have a problem with mice in the home the only sustainable and reasonable solution is to plug holes and cracks. Resorting to rodenticides kills eagles coyotes and other animals that pray on mice. You will also continue to attract the mice and continue to have a long term problem.
Bats tend to get a bad rap for carrying diseases or drinking blood (only vampire bats do that!). While it’s true that you should avoid physical contact with bats, they’re critical for the health of forest systems, crop pollination, and controlling the insect population.
How Bats Benefit the Environment A past study published in the journal science found bats have contributed up to millions a year to agriculture by eating crop-damaging insects. By contrast, pollinators like bees have contributed many shillings worth of work for agriculture. A single colony of brown bats can eat nearly million insects annually.
If you’re like us, you may be surprised that bats are so important for the environment. Unfortunately, bats are facing many threats to their survival, just like bees. Safe bat habitats are disappearing at a rapid rate, driving bats into urban areas where they’re exposed to harmful pesticides, prowling pets, and other dangers.
We’ve found four ways you create a more bat-friendly yard so they can do their work in a safe environment. While many people are worried about bats lingering around their homes, as long as you don’t touch them, you and your pets are perfectly safe. In fact, you can rest assured that bats want to avoid you and your pets just as much as you want to avoid them—if not more so.
Ways to Create a Bat-Friendly Backyard
1. Install a Bat House Bats are running out of safe spaces to live. Their habitats—which naturally include caves, rock crevices, and trees are disappearing. Bats instead have to look for old buildings, bridges, and mines, where they may be subject to extermination.
Installing a bat house is a great way to contribute to bat conservation. Bat houses are a lot like bird houses. You can buy them online or build them. Just be sure they’re made of wood, are 12 to 20 feet above the ground, and are installed 20 to 30 feet from tree lines.
2. Leave Dead Trees Alone If you don’t want to build or buy a bat house, you can also support bat habitats in another, easy way: Do nothing! If you have a dying tree in your backyard that you’re tempted to cut down, consider leaving it alone if it doesn’t pose a safety risk. Bats love hollow trees to roost (aka sleep, rest, and hibernate).
3. Avoid Pesticides As with most pollinators, pesticides present a major threat to bat populations. While many of us may associate bats with vampire bats, most bats actually live off nuts, fruits, and other pollinated plants. In doing so, they help pollinate many crops! Using pesticides on your plants or trees can poison bats.
Also, remember that bats act like natural pest control. Bats are great for keeping your insect population down. With a bat house around, you won’t need pesticides anyway!
4. Keep Your Cats Indoors at Night We all know cats like birds (or, well, don’t like them). But did you know cat attacks are a leading cause of bat death? Keep your cats indoors at night to help ensure your local bats can feed safely.
