Frio River Bats

This evening we hit the Frio River Bat Cave. Known cave since 1790, guano was first harvested by Spanish “volunteers” and sent to Europe for fertilizer. Guano is still harvested for fertilizer and makeup.

Confederates extracted nitrate for gunpowder. During WWII there was a plan to use the bats to “bomb” Japan. The plan was to strap them with ignition and release them on the enemy. The bats it was assumed would crawl in tight crawl spots and start fires. The plan backfired during a test and burned down the military base nearby when several escaped. This cave has 10-12 million bats making it the second largest colony after Brackin Cave near Austin which has 20 million.

Regarding the fungus affecting bats there are 6 confirmed cases north of I-10. It first started northern New York in 2006 and is now in 24-25 states. It only affects hibernating bats by shutting down their immune system while hibernating. These are migratory bats headed to Brazil and only here to give birth and raise babies so they may be ok. The babies will be born in July and ready to migrate in 6-10 weeks after that. The males don’t stay in this cave. Males are in man caves in colonies around here or possibly returned to Mexico. Carlsbad caves would be a likely place as it’s all males

When they leave the cave they are headed to eat agricultural pests, mainly moths. They will eat 120 tons of agricultural pests each night. This saves farmers within these 8 counties 7 million a year in pesticide fees.

One little lady had a collision and sadly won’t be making it back to the cave tonight.

More info here but this is Bracken Cave – the only larger colony on the PLANET!

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