International Bat Appreciation Day: Amazing Bat Facts, Myths & Ways to Help

Gorgeous Brown Bat with Big Eyes Hanging Upside | Vladimir Turkenich

When the sun disappears and most familiar backyard birds settle down for the night, another group of remarkable flying animals begins its shift.

Bats emerge from trees, caves, bridges, buildings, rock crevices, and other daytime roosts to search for insects, fruit, nectar, fish, and other foods. Some navigate darkness with extraordinary echolocation systems. Others pollinate flowers or carry seeds across tropical forests. Some migrate hundreds of miles, while others survive winter by dramatically slowing their metabolism during hibernation.

International Bat Appreciation Day, observed every April 17, is a chance to look past the spooky mythology and appreciate bats for what they really are: an extraordinarily diverse group of mammals with important ecological roles around the world.

There are now more than 1,480 recognized bat species, accounting for roughly one-fifth of mammal diversity. They live on every continent except Antarctica and occupy habitats ranging from tropical forests and deserts to cities, farms, caves, and temperate woodlands.

They are also facing serious challenges. Habitat loss, climate change, hunting, disturbance, wind-energy mortality, and disease affect different species in different places. In North America, white-nose syndrome has caused catastrophic declines in several hibernating bat species.

Understanding bats is one of the easiest ways to replace fear with fascination.

And the more you learn about them, the stranger—and more impressive—they become.

🦇 International Bat Appreciation Day Is April 17

International Bat Appreciation Day is celebrated each year on April 17.

The observance provides an opportunity for conservation groups, parks, educators, researchers, and wildlife enthusiasts to share information about bat biology and the threats facing bat populations.

It is particularly well timed in the Northern Hemisphere because spring is a period when many bats are becoming more active after winter. Some species emerge from hibernation, while migratory bats return to summer habitat.

You do not need a special event to participate.

Watching bats at dusk, learning which species live in your region, reducing unnecessary outdoor lighting, improving wildlife habitat, or simply correcting a common bat myth can all make the day worthwhile.

🌍 Bats Are One of the Most Diverse Groups of Mammals

A bat is not one particular kind of animal any more than “bird” describes one particular species.

There are more than 1,480 bat species worldwide.

They range from tiny species weighing only a few grams to large fruit bats with impressive wingspans. They live in tropical forests, dry deserts, mountain valleys, cities, farmland, wetlands, and islands.

Some spend their days packed into enormous cave colonies.

Others roost alone beneath loose tree bark or inside foliage.

Some migrate seasonally. Others remain in the same general region throughout the year.

Their diets are just as varied. Insects are extremely important food for many species, but other bats eat fruit, nectar, pollen, fish, frogs, small vertebrates, or blood.

That diversity is one reason sweeping statements about “what bats do” are often misleading.

A nectar-feeding bat in the Sonoran Desert lives a very different life from an insect-eating little brown bat in North America or a fruit bat in a tropical forest.

🪽 Bats Are the Only Mammals Capable of True Flight

Colony of Millions of Bats Streaming Out of a Cave to go Feed at Sunset outside of Battambang, Cambodia | Steph Couvrette

Flying squirrels may glide impressive distances, but bats are the only mammals capable of sustained powered flight.

Their wings are built from dramatically elongated finger bones connected by thin, flexible membranes.

The scientific order containing bats is Chiroptera, a name derived from Greek words meaning approximately “hand wing.”

If you look closely at a bat wing, the name makes perfect sense.

Rather than having a birdlike wing built primarily around feathers, a bat essentially flies with an enormously modified hand.

That flexible structure gives bats remarkable control in the air. They can twist their wings, adjust their shape during each wingbeat, make rapid turns, and maneuver through complicated environments while chasing insects or approaching flowers.

The result is one of evolution’s most extraordinary solutions to flight.

👀 Myth: Bats Are Blind

The phrase “blind as a bat” has done bats no favors.

Bats are not blind.

They have functioning eyes, and some species have very good eyesight. Vision is particularly important to many fruit- and nectar-feeding bats.

Many bats also use echolocation, but echolocation supplements their other senses rather than replacing vision completely.

A bat flying at night may therefore be processing visual information, sounds, smells, air movement, and echoes at the same time.

Their world is not one of blindness.

It is a sensory environment far richer than humans can easily imagine.

🔊 Echolocation Lets Bats Build a World from Sound

Many bat species navigate and hunt using echolocation.

A bat produces high-frequency sounds, often at frequencies humans cannot hear. Those sounds travel through the environment and bounce off objects.

The returning echoes contain information.

By analyzing them, a bat can determine where an object is, how large it is, how quickly it is moving, and other details useful for navigating or hunting.

When an insect-eating bat closes in on prey, its echolocation calls may accelerate into what researchers call a feeding buzz.

The calls arrive more and more rapidly as the bat pinpoints the insect before capture.

Scientists can record these ultrasonic calls with specialized acoustic detectors. Different bat species often produce characteristic call patterns, allowing researchers to identify and monitor bats that may be almost impossible to see clearly in darkness.

🌙 Not Every Bat Uses Echolocation the Same Way

Echolocation is often described as though all bats share one identical sonar system.

They do not.

Different species use different frequencies, call shapes, durations, intensities, and strategies depending on the habitats in which they hunt.

A bat searching for insects in open air faces a different acoustic challenge from one maneuvering among dense branches.

Some bats can distinguish remarkably small objects through reflected sound.

Others rely more heavily on vision and smell.

The diversity of bat sensory systems is another reminder that more than 1,480 species cannot be reduced to one familiar stereotype.

🐛 Many Bats Are Important Insect Predators

Insect-eating bats consume enormous quantities of prey collectively.

Their diets may include moths, beetles, flies, mosquitoes, and numerous insects associated with forests and agricultural crops.

That does not mean releasing a bat into the yard will eliminate mosquitoes or that bats should be marketed as a guaranteed form of pest control.

Wild ecosystems rarely work that neatly.

But insectivorous bats are significant predators within their food webs, and their feeding can provide economic benefits in agricultural landscapes.

They are especially valuable because they hunt at night, when a different collection of insects is active from the one encountered by most daytime birds.

When bats disappear from an ecosystem, an important group of nocturnal predators disappears with them.

🌵 Some Bats Are Important Pollinators

In tropical and desert regions, nectar-feeding bats pollinate flowers as they move between plants.

Long-nosed bats of the American Southwest and Mexico provide one of the best-known examples.

Their elongated faces and tongues allow them to feed from nectar-rich flowers, carrying pollen between plants in the process.

Agaves are among the plants associated with bat pollination.

That relationship has a cultural connection many people find surprising: agave is the plant used to make beverages including tequila and mezcal.

Bats also pollinate a variety of other plants around the world.

Pollination by bats is sometimes called chiropterophily, and many bat-pollinated flowers have evolved traits suited to nighttime visitors, including strong scents, pale coloration, large quantities of nectar, and nighttime opening.

🌳 Fruit-Eating Bats Can Help Forests Regenerate

Fruit bats and other fruit-eating species perform another important ecological job: moving seeds.

A bat may eat fruit in one location and carry or deposit the seeds somewhere else.

In tropical landscapes, that movement can help plants colonize disturbed or cleared areas.

Some bats are particularly useful seed dispersers because they can fly over open ground that forest-dwelling animals may avoid.

That allows seeds to travel from intact vegetation into damaged landscapes.

No single bat species “reforests” an ecosystem on its own, and seed dispersal is only one part of forest regeneration.

But collectively, fruit-eating bats can make substantial contributions to the movement of plants through tropical landscapes.

🍌 Do Bats Pollinate Bananas, Mangoes & Avocados?

Lists of “foods we would lose without bats” often circulate online, but they tend to oversimplify complicated plant relationships.

Some wild relatives or varieties of economically important plants interact with bats, and bats are vital pollinators or seed dispersers for many tropical species.

That does not mean every banana, mango, or avocado in a supermarket depends directly on bats.

A better way to appreciate their importance is to recognize that bats participate in the reproduction and dispersal of many plant species and contribute to diverse, functioning ecosystems.

The real ecological story is impressive enough without exaggerating it.

🩸 Myth: All Bats Drink Blood

Only three living bat species feed primarily on blood.

All three are found in Latin America.

They represent a tiny fraction of global bat diversity.

Vampire bats typically feed from other mammals or birds, depending on the species. They make a small wound and lap blood rather than dramatically sinking giant fangs into prey like a fictional vampire.

Their unusual diet has made them disproportionately famous.

Meanwhile, hundreds of insect-eating, fruit-eating, nectar-feeding, and other bats receive far less attention.

Most people will never encounter a vampire bat in the wild.

🐟 Some Bats Catch Fish

Bat diets can become surprisingly specialized.

Several species are capable of catching fish or other aquatic prey.

They use echolocation to detect disturbances at the water surface and then rake through the water with enlarged feet and claws.

Other bat species eat frogs or small vertebrates.

Still others specialize on fruit, nectar, insects, or combinations of different foods.

The enormous range of bat diets reflects millions of years of evolution into different ecological niches.

There is no single “bat diet.”

🏃 Some Bats Are Astonishingly Fast

Bats may look fluttery when viewed at dusk, but some are capable of remarkable speed.

Research on Brazilian free-tailed bats has recorded exceptionally fast horizontal flight, and Bat Conservation International cites short bursts approaching 100 miles per hour.

The exact meaning of “fastest mammal” depends on how speed is measured and compared, but the important point is clear: bat flight can be extraordinarily powerful.

Brazilian free-tailed bats are built for long-distance, high-speed movement through open air.

Other species prioritize maneuverability instead, weaving through vegetation or hovering near flowers.

Bat wings come in shapes suited to very different kinds of flight.

🧬 Some Small Bats Live Surprisingly Long Lives

Small mammals usually have short lifespans.

Mice and similar animals live fast, reproduce quickly, and often survive only a few years.

Bats break that pattern.

Some species can live for decades despite having very small bodies.

That combination has made bat longevity particularly interesting to researchers studying aging, metabolism, immunity, and physiology.

Many bats also reproduce relatively slowly.

A female may produce only one pup in a year, depending on the species.

That slow reproductive rate has an important conservation consequence: populations that suffer catastrophic losses may not rebound quickly.

A colony cannot necessarily replace thousands of lost adults within a few breeding seasons.

👶 Baby Bats Are Called Pups

Young bats are commonly called pups.

Many species produce only one pup at a time, although reproductive strategies vary.

Female bats of some species gather in maternity colonies where they give birth and raise young together.

A mother returning from a night of foraging may need to locate her own pup among many others.

Vocalizations and scent can help mothers and offspring recognize one another.

Young bats grow quickly, but they depend on their mothers for milk until they are capable of flying and feeding independently.

Disturbing maternity colonies can therefore have serious consequences, especially when pups are still unable to fly.

🏠 Bats Use More Kinds of Homes Than Caves

Caves are strongly associated with bats, but many species rarely or never use them.

Bats can roost in hollow trees, beneath loose bark, inside tree cavities, among leaves, in rock crevices, underneath bridges, inside buildings, and in other protected spaces.

Different roosts may be used for different purposes.

A maternity colony needs conditions suitable for raising pups.

A winter hibernation site must provide the right temperature and humidity.

Migrating bats may use temporary stopover roosts.

Protecting bats therefore requires more than protecting famous caves.

Trees, forests, wetlands, open water, old structures, and other habitat features may all matter depending on the local species.

😴 Some Bats Hibernate While Others Migrate

When winter removes much of the available insect prey in temperate regions, bats need another strategy.

Some hibernate.

Their body temperature drops, metabolism slows, and heart rate decreases dramatically, allowing stored fat to last through months when feeding opportunities are limited.

Other bats migrate, moving to regions where food or suitable winter habitat remains available.

Some species combine migration and hibernation.

Hibernation is one reason disturbance inside winter bat caves can be so damaging. Every unnecessary arousal forces a bat to burn precious fat reserves.

A few disruptions may make the difference between surviving until spring and running out of energy.

🦠 White-Nose Syndrome Has Devastated North American Bats

One of the most serious wildlife-disease events in modern North America began in the mid-2000s.

White-nose syndrome is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, which grows on hibernating bats.

The disease disrupts hibernation and can cause bats to wake repeatedly, using up the fat stores they need to survive the winter.

The results have been catastrophic.

USGS reports that white-nose syndrome has contributed to population declines of more than 90 percent in northern long-eared bats, little brown bats, and tricolored bats in affected areas.

Millions of bats have died.

Researchers continue to study disease management, population recovery, treatments, and other approaches. USGS scientists have also been investigating tools including vaccination as part of the effort to reduce future losses.

White-nose syndrome demonstrates why slow reproduction matters so much.

A species that typically raises only one pup each year cannot replace enormous losses quickly.

🌎 Bats Face Threats Beyond Disease

White-nose syndrome receives considerable attention in North America, but bats face many other pressures around the world.

Habitat destruction can remove feeding areas and roosts.

Deforestation affects forest-dependent bats.

Cave disturbance can disrupt breeding or hibernation colonies.

Climate change can alter food availability, heat exposure, drought, and water resources.

Some migratory species are killed at wind-energy facilities, which has prompted extensive research into ways of reducing collisions and fatalities.

Bats are also hunted for food or trade in some parts of the world.

The specific threats differ between species and regions, which means effective conservation has to be equally specific.

📉 Many Bat Species Need Conservation Attention

IUCN reported in 2025 that more than 1,300 bat species had been formally assessed for the IUCN Red List.

Dozens were categorized as Critically Endangered or Endangered, and many others were considered Vulnerable.

Hundreds remained Data Deficient, meaning scientists still lacked enough information to determine their conservation status confidently.

That uncertainty is itself important.

Bats can be difficult to study. Many are nocturnal, highly mobile, hidden in inaccessible roosts, or difficult to distinguish without acoustic or genetic methods.

For some species, scientists are still trying to answer basic questions about population size, migration, breeding, and habitat use.

🧛 Myth: Bats Are Dangerous Animals That Attack People

Healthy wild bats generally try to avoid people.

They are not flying around looking for someone to attack.

A bat swooping nearby may be pursuing insects or simply navigating through the same space.

That does not mean bats should be handled.

Wild animals defend themselves when frightened or restrained, and bats can carry rabies.

The sensible position lies between panic and casual handling: enjoy bats from a distance and leave physical contact to trained professionals or follow public-health instructions when exposure may have occurred.

🦠 Myth: Every Bat Has Rabies

No.

Most bats are not rabid.

However, rabies is a serious and almost always fatal disease once symptoms develop, so potential bat contact should never be dismissed casually.

CDC advises avoiding direct contact with bats and obtaining medical or public-health advice if a person may have been bitten, scratched, or otherwise exposed.

Bat bites can be very small and difficult to see.

If you find a bat in a situation where human exposure might have occurred, particularly inside a home, contact your local public health department or animal-control authority before releasing it.

They can help determine whether rabies testing or post-exposure treatment needs to be considered.

Do not handle a bat with bare hands.

Appreciating bats and taking rabies seriously are completely compatible ideas.

💇 Myth: Bats Want to Fly into Your Hair

Bats do not seek out human hair.

Their ability to navigate through darkness using vision and echolocation makes deliberately crashing into someone’s head extremely unlikely.

A bat may occasionally fly close to a person while chasing insects or navigating around an unfamiliar obstacle.

That quick movement can feel alarming when it happens inches away.

But the bat is not trying to build a nest in your hair, attack you, or become tangled there.

This old myth probably survives because bats move rapidly and unpredictably from a human perspective.

From the bat’s perspective, the flight is considerably more controlled.

🧼 Myth: Bats Are Filthy Animals

Bats groom themselves and spend substantial time maintaining their fur and wings.

However, it is equally inaccurate to claim that bats are somehow free of parasites.

Like virtually all wild mammals, bats can host parasites, including highly specialized mites, ticks, fleas, and bat flies.

The useful correction is therefore not “bats are perfectly clean.”

It is that ordinary parasite ecology does not make bats uniquely filthy or deserving of fear.

Wildlife should be appreciated from an appropriate distance rather than judged according to human standards of cleanliness.

🦟 Do Bats Eat Thousands of Mosquitoes Every Night?

This claim needs context.

Bats certainly eat mosquitoes, and laboratory feeding experiments have sometimes produced striking consumption numbers.

But wild bats choose among many available insects.

Moths, beetles, flies, and other prey may make up substantial portions of their diets depending on the species and location.

So installing a bat house is not equivalent to purchasing a guaranteed mosquito-control system.

Bats are valuable insect predators because of their overall ecological role, not because each individual promises to remove a particular number of mosquitoes from your patio every night.

🏡 How Can You Make a Yard Better for Bats?

The best bat-friendly yard is usually one that supports a functioning nighttime food web.

Native trees, shrubs, and flowering plants can support diverse insect populations. Oaks and other native woody plants can be especially valuable because they host large numbers of insects while also providing potential roosting habitat.

Avoid unnecessary broad-spectrum pesticide use.

A yard deliberately stripped of insects does not provide much food for insect-eating bats.

Flowers can help too, particularly when they support moths and other nocturnal insects.

In North America, however, night-blooming flowers generally help local insect-eating bats indirectly by supporting insect prey. They should not automatically be described as nectar sources for bats unless nectar-feeding bats actually occur in that region.

🌳 Keep Mature Trees Where It Is Safe to Do So

Trees provide far more than shade.

Depending on the species and condition of the tree, bats may roost in cavities, beneath loose bark, inside cracks, or among foliage.

Mature native trees also support insects that become bat prey.

Dead standing trees, or snags, can provide valuable wildlife habitat too.

Of course, a dead tree threatening a house, road, utility line, or frequently used area may need professional attention.

Wildlife habitat should not come at the expense of basic safety.

When a snag can safely remain, however, it may become useful habitat for bats, birds, insects, and other wildlife.

💡 Reduce Unnecessary Outdoor Lighting

Artificial light at night changes natural darkness.

Some bats will feed around lights where insects congregate, while other species actively avoid brightly illuminated areas.

Excessive lighting can alter movement, commuting routes, feeding behavior, and access to habitat.

Use outdoor lighting where it is genuinely needed for safety and security, but avoid illuminating the entire property unnecessarily.

Shield lights downward.

Use the lowest practical intensity.

Timers and motion sensors can keep lights off when nobody is using the area.

Darkness is habitat too.

💧 Bats Need Water—but a Birdbath Isn’t the Whole Answer

Many bats drink while flying.

They skim across the surface of water and take a quick drink without landing.

That means access matters.

Bat Conservation International recommends open water with enough length and clear flight space for bats to approach, dip toward the surface, and climb away again. Their guidance suggests roughly 7 to 10 feet of accessible water surface can be useful.

A pond, trough, pool, or other open water feature may therefore be more practical for bats than a tiny dish.

Any open container should also be designed with wildlife safety in mind. Provide an escape ramp or another way for an animal that falls in to climb back out.

A shallow birdbath remains useful for birds and insects.

It simply should not be advertised as the ideal bat drinking station.

🏠 Should You Install a Bat House?

A well-designed bat house can provide additional roosting habitat for certain species.

But bat houses are not guaranteed to attract bats, and installation details matter.

Bat Conservation International warns that poorly designed or improperly installed houses may remain empty, attract pests, or even create unsafe temperatures.

The old rule that every bat house should simply face south or southeast is too simplistic.

Climate, sunlight, house design, color, mounting height, nearby vegetation, and local bat species can all influence success.

Current U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bat Conservation International guidance should be consulted before building or installing one.

Think of a bat house as one possible habitat feature—not a magic bat magnet.

🏠 A Bat House Won’t Automatically Move Bats Out of Your Attic

If bats are already roosting inside a building, putting a box in the yard does not mean the colony will voluntarily relocate.

Bats often show strong fidelity to established roosts.

Removing them from an unwanted building site generally requires a carefully timed exclusion, which allows bats to leave while preventing them from returning.

Timing is crucial.

Excluding adults while non-flying pups are still inside can trap young bats and cause unnecessary deaths.

Local wildlife regulations may also protect particular species or maternity colonies.

If you have a bat colony in a building, contact an experienced wildlife professional or appropriate wildlife agency rather than sealing openings immediately.

🐈 Keep Cats Away from Bats

Outdoor cats can kill bats as well as birds and other wildlife.

Bat Conservation International specifically recommends keeping cats indoors at night, particularly during summer when female bats may be raising pups.

Bats emerging from low roosts can be especially vulnerable.

If a cat brings home a bat or has direct contact with one, avoid handling the bat with bare hands and contact a veterinarian and local public-health authorities for guidance.

Keeping cats indoors is safer for bats and generally safer for cats as well.

🧴 Reduce Unnecessary Pesticide Use

Pesticides can affect bats in more than one way.

Some chemicals may pose direct risks, while broad insect control can also reduce the prey available to insectivorous species.

That does not mean every garden pest must be ignored.

Instead, use an integrated approach.

Identify the problem first.

Decide whether it actually requires treatment.

Use physical, cultural, or targeted methods when practical rather than automatically spraying broad areas.

A garden containing insects is not necessarily a failed garden.

It may be functioning habitat.

🦇 How to Watch Bats Without Disturbing Them

One of the easiest ways to celebrate International Bat Appreciation Day is simply to watch bats.

Choose a mild evening and find an open view of the sky near water, woodland edges, parks, or other likely feeding habitat.

Begin watching around sunset.

Bats may appear as quick silhouettes making abrupt turns through the sky.

Unlike many birds, they often seem to change direction almost instantaneously while pursuing insects.

A bat detector can make the experience even more interesting by converting ultrasonic echolocation calls into frequencies humans can hear or displaying them visually.

Avoid shining powerful lights directly at roost entrances or repeatedly disturbing bats as they emerge.

Observation works best when the animals barely know you are there.

🕳️ Don’t Disturb Hibernating Bats

Caves and abandoned mines may provide critical winter habitat.

When people enter hibernation sites, bats can wake from torpor.

Arousal is energetically expensive.

A bat that repeatedly wakes during winter may consume fat reserves it cannot easily replace until insects return.

White-nose syndrome makes this problem even more serious because infected bats already experience excessive arousal.

Respect seasonal cave closures and other wildlife restrictions.

They exist for a reason.

Sometimes helping wildlife means simply staying away.

🏚️ What Should You Do If You Find a Bat in the House?

A bat inside a home creates two separate concerns: getting the animal out safely and determining whether anyone might have been exposed to rabies.

Do not immediately release a bat if there is a possibility that a person or pet had direct contact with it.

CDC recommends contacting local public-health or animal-control authorities in those circumstances because the bat may need to be captured and tested.

If direct contact occurred, seek medical guidance promptly.

For recurring bats in attics, walls, or other parts of a building, use humane exclusion rather than poison or indiscriminate trapping.

And remember that maternity season can complicate removal because young bats may not yet be able to fly.

Professional guidance is often worth seeking.

🩹 What If You Find an Injured Bat?

Do not pick it up with bare hands.

A bat found on the ground, unable to fly, active in an unusual location, or behaving strangely may be injured or ill.

Keep children and pets away.

Contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, animal-control service, wildlife agency, or public-health authority as appropriate.

If a person may have been bitten or scratched—or if saliva may have contacted the eyes, nose, mouth, or an open wound—wash the area with soap and water and seek medical advice immediately.

The goal is to protect both the bat and the person.

🎃 Why Are Bats Associated with Halloween?

Bats have spent centuries accumulating associations with darkness, caves, night, mystery, witchcraft, and the supernatural.

Those associations became particularly visible in 19th- and early-20th-century Halloween imagery, when bats joined witches, black cats, owls, skeletons, and full moons as recognizable symbols of October 31.

Vampire literature and film strengthened the connection even further.

Today the Halloween bat is usually rendered as a black silhouette with pointed wings, which only vaguely resembles many real species.

The irony is that the holiday image often encourages fear of animals that are extraordinarily sophisticated, social, and ecologically valuable.

Learning about real bats makes the Halloween version more interesting, not less.

For more on how bats became part of the holiday’s visual language, see Vintage Halloween Traditions We Still Celebrate Today.

🌎 Why Bat Appreciation Matters

Bats tend to become visible to people only when something goes wrong.

One gets into the house.

A colony appears in an attic.

A cave closes because of white-nose syndrome.

A bat swoops unexpectedly across a porch.

That limited contact makes it easy for myths to dominate.

But most of a bat’s life happens far from human attention.

Night after night, insect-eating bats hunt through the darkness. Nectar-feeding bats visit flowers. Fruit bats move seeds through forests. Mothers return to maternity colonies and locate their pups. Migrants cross landscapes most of us never realize they are using.

Their absence can be equally difficult to notice.

A population may decline for years before the average person realizes anything has changed.

International Bat Appreciation Day is useful because it makes those hidden lives visible for a moment.

A flock of fruit bats in the sunset sky | Sergey Uryadnikov

💜 A Better Way to Think About Bats

Bats do not need to be portrayed as perfect little superheroes to deserve protection.

They can carry diseases.

They can become unwelcome houseguests.

Some species occasionally create conflicts with agriculture or buildings.

They also pollinate plants, disperse seeds, consume insects, support food webs, and represent one of the most extraordinary evolutionary branches of mammal life.

Those things can all be true at once.

Appreciating wildlife does not require touching it, feeding it, bringing it inside, or pretending it can never cause problems.

It begins with understanding.

On April 17, spend a few minutes outside after sunset.

Watch the sky.

That dark shape darting between the trees is not a blind flying mouse trying to get tangled in someone’s hair.

It is a mammal flying on elongated fingers, listening to echoes humans cannot hear, navigating a nighttime world that has existed above our heads all along.

That seems like reason enough to appreciate bats.