HughPickens.com [hughpickens.com] writes:
Arielle Dollinger writes at the NYT that the town of North Hempstead on Long Island has approved the
construction of bat houses in several parks to attract more bats to the area [nytimes.com] because despite their less-than-desirable reputation, bats possess a remarkable ability to control insects especially disease-carrying mosquitoes. “
Bats can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes per hour [motherearthnews.com],” says Judi Bosworth. “That’s extraordinary. A pesticide couldn’t do that.” As mosquito season heats up, bringing with it the threat of the West Nile and Zika viruses, the bats make very welcome neighbors. Aedes albopictus, known as the Asian tiger mosquito, is found on Long Island and is capable of transmitting Zika in a laboratory setting and as of October,
490 cases of West Nile and 37 deaths [ny.gov] resulting from it have been recorded in New York since 2000. The
myths surrounding bats have long shaped public perception [nationalgeographic.com] of the night creatures. “I grew up and I always heard, you know, these old wives’ tales, that bats will swoop down on your head and get tangled in your hair,” says Bosworth. “Bats really have been very maligned.”
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