Published: December 04, 2007 11:26 pm         

TPWD experts discuss bat issues

PALESTINE — State wildlife biologists told approximately two dozen downtown property owners Monday that the best way to handle the city’s bat problem would be to seal their buildings against the flying rodents.

Ricky Maxey, a wildlife diversity biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, along with TPWD wildlife biologists David Sierra and Aaron Flanders, described the type of habitat that Mexican free-tail bats prefer and discussed options for dealing with the approximately 70,000 bats estimated to live in the downtown area during an afternoon meeting of the Main Street Advisory Board at city hall.

While the bats are known to eat insects, their urine leaves a distinctive odor and their droppings, or guano, can carry disease, the biologists said.

“This is not going to be something that can be taken care of with a quick fix, because these colonies have developed over a number of years,” Maxey said. “The main action that needs to be taken to alleviate the problem in the buildings is exclusion. You can’t just go in there and kill all these bats because they’re protected under law in Texas.”

Instead of killing them, locking them out by exclusion — sealing up openings and affixing essentially a one-way door out — keeps them from re-entering the building, forcing them to find a new home, Maxey said.

“Exclusion is complicated, or confounded, by the fact that when you exclude a bat from Building A, if you’ve got Building B or in this case, Building XYZ out here that has the same type of situation with broken windows, cracks in foundations, cracks around the windows, openings around pipes — anything as big as your pinky — a bat can come in,” Maxey said. “So when you exclude bats from one building and the other buildings in the area have openings, then the bats will just move to the next suitable structure.”

The best solution is to get as many downtown property owners as possible with bats to seal entrances and add excluder exits, removing the bats from those habitats, while providing someplace more acceptable for them to live, he said, echoing a message delivered in August by experts from Bat Solutions, a private firm from San Antonio which specializes in bat exclusion.

While building upkeep is a property owner’s responsibility, Maxey said, cities can encourage property owners to maintain their buildings in a such a way as to keep bats out.

“If, in my mind, you want to do exclusion in the downtown area, every single building owner is going to have to get on board,” he said. “And, if you don’t have some kind of city ordinance or code put in place...then it’s going to be very hard to fix.”

City development code director Warren Oakley told the audience that although he didn’t want to become the “bat police,” his code enforcement inspectors would begin cracking down on downtown structures known to house bats which are out of compliance with the city building codes.

“We’ve got to do what everybody is telling us, sealing these buildings off,” Oakley said. “We’ve got to do something. We can’t just sit by and let another 10 years go by.”

Maxey suggested that building owners consider creative solutions for dealing with the problem, which brought forth suggestions of converting old empty buildings into bat residences or building eye-appealing structures such as clock towers, which could house large numbers of bats but allow for easy, consistent removal of guano, which could then be sold for garden fertilizer.

Mike and April Johnston’s business, The Texas Art Depot, shares a wall with the building considered to be home to the largest number of bats.

The idea of turning the large number of bats into a positive — harvesting their guano for sale — appealed to him, he said, since the bats cannot be legally killed.

“I think what we need to do is contract it, put it out in annual bids,” Johnston said. “The person has to fulfill the contract, keep (a bat building) clean and meet the deadlines scheduled” for delivery of the guano.

Using specially designed bat structures located around town to control the bats’ nesting places could work well, he said.

“Something decorative that would fulfill the function is a good idea,” Johnston said. “The first thing is, we’ve got to get them out of the existing structures.”

Timothy and Elaine Triplett, who recently purchased the second-most bat-populated downtown building, the Gregg-Link Building, also attended the meeting to hear what the experts had to say.

“I appreciate that it was scientifically based, good information,” Triplett said. “I was encouraged that there is a solution around the corner. I’m confident the city will come up with a solution tht will protect the bats and the environment.

“I’m all for having the bats still in the area but in such a way that they’re not a problem.”

Main Street Advisory Board chair Jean Mollard said after the meeting that she was encouraged to see many of the downtown property owners not only in attendance but also agreeing to get involved.

“This was a great catalyst for inclusion of the downtown Main Street building owners,” Mollard said, noting that property owners ultimately must see the urgency needed and take appropriate steps. “Without the owners, the program doesn’t work. I’m very glad to see them show up.”

     

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