by Gerry T. Estrera
It has more bats than people.
The Island Garden City of Samal in southern Philippines has about 90,000 people living in 30,130 hectares but it has more than two million bats in 23-hectare protected area in barangay Tambo, Babak District. Each month, the population of bats is growing.
“I have never seen such an immense number of bats,” says Roy C. Alimoane, who recently visited the place. “The caves are overflowing with bats that are cramped very closely together hanging upside down, coating the large walls of the caves. Some are continuously flying, while several others are seen clinging out in the open so close to the ground.”
Samal has about seventy caves, which used to be inhabited by these bats. Unfortunately, most of these caves are now empty. In some parts of the island, bats are hunted for food by people (particularly during the beer drinking sessions). They are also killed because some people think of these as supernatural beings like vampires. Their natural homes like caves are disturbed because of guano mining and swiftlet nest collection. Bats are also threatened by natural predators like snakes and calamities like earthquakes and forest fires.
But thanks to Norma Monfort, the million of bats living in a cave with five openings are safe from people’s intrusion. “Angels of the night” is how she calls the nocturnal creatures. “They are angels because the service they do for humanity and the environment is invaluable,” she explains. “They have always been the major agents of reforestation.”
Monfort, who is the founder and president of the Monfort Bat Cave and Conservation Foundation, considers bats are the front line warriors against climate change. “They are pollinators,” she points out. “They maintain so many species of plants, trees and fruits that are habitats for other important species. If we lose them completely, we stand a great chance to never again enjoy the wonderful fruits and plants we have today.”
There are more than 1,100 bat species in the world. The Philippines is home to 26 indigenous bat species – more than any other country. Most of these bats are threatened.
“The threat to bats in the Philippines is quite serious considering that very little literatures and researches have been published about them,” says Monfort. “In addition, bats are still misunderstood until now. In fact, only very few Filipinos are aware about the importance of bats to the environment and to our economy. Because of this, it is much easier for people to hunt bats down because they feel bats are dispensable.”
The bats that inhabit Monfort’s place are called Geoffroy’s rousette fruit bats, known scientifically as Rousettus amplexicaudatus.
The fruit bats have been there since the very beginning. She was barely walking when the family would seek shelter inside the cave during the Second World War. Japanese war planes would circle around Samal Island before bombing the adjacent Davao. “Together with some of our neighbors, we would run to the backyard cave,” she said.
Only few bats inhabit the cave at that time. After the war was over, the family built a house near the cave, which was already inhabited by bats. The family moved to Davao and lived there. But during weekends and holidays, she would accompany her father going to the farm, as she called their Samal residence.
When she was already a teenager, she and some of her friends would venture going inside the cave to see the bats. “To me it was a ‘matter of fact thing.’ I don’t recall being amazed,” Monfort admits. “It was simply; these are bats!”
But growing up and seeing bats made her to take care for these creatures. She describes them as “meek and gentle and keep grooming themselves.” When they come out at night, they go out in an orderly manner like doing a circadian flight. “Instead of fear, I feel being amazed and stand in awe before such a great sight,” she says. “You marvel and become inspired at God’s creation.”
Fortunately, her parents gave the land as her inheritance. Monfort loves the bats that she thought of protecting them from leaving the cave. But with the government’s agrarian reform laws, which limit individual ownership of agricultural land, she may loss the land where the bats are dwelling.
She raised her own funds to bring the respected scientists from Bat Conservation International (BCI) to her cave to advise the best way to ensure continued protection of her bats. Together with BCI and six other government and non-governmental organizations, Monfort signed an agreement protecting the cave as the Monfort Bat Conservation Park in 2006. Within six months, Monfort also created the Philippines Bat Conservation, an environmental group that reaches beyond her colony to promote conservation of all Philippine bat species.
In 2010, the staff from the Guinness Book of World Records came and found out there were about 1.8 million bats residing in the 280 meter long cave. That’s a density of 645 bats per square meter. The huge number made it as the world’s biggest colony of fruit bats.
The following year, an American cave-mapping expedition stumbled upon an unusually high number of pregnant bats in theMonfort bat colony. The bat species does not usually give birth in the first month of the year, making the discovery a “big surprise” and forcing the scientists to halt their mapping project, Monfort reports.
The cause of the bat baby boom is unknown. However, Monfort suspects one factor may be that the cave is protected from humans as an ecotourism site, which allows their numbers to grow.
Today, an estimated 2.4 million bats taking refuge at the cave. This alarms Monfort so much so that she is thinking of setting up a chiroptorium, a combination of the word “chiroptera” (for hand wing bats) and “torium” from auditorium.
Monfort also wants to put up an artificial bat cave for interactive viewing of both visitors and researchers. As she explains, “This will eradicate the two nagging questions: Can humans transmit diseases to bats with the growing numbers of visitors coming to see the bats? Would these increasingly horrific numbers of bat population transmit any diseases to humans? So far, there are no researches done on these. But what we know is that since the existence of these bats in the island, there has been no record of diseases or even rabies coming from bats.”
Although she lives in Davao City, she comes to her Samal property every now and then. When she’s there, she roams around the property. With a notebook, she writes down the things her staff has to attend to. “It is tough for me because the property is slightly sloping and I get overwhelmed with the size of the land,” she admits. “But I have to do it. This may be the last bastion of bats in the country in the near future.”
When she enters the sanctuary, referring to the bat cave, she literally talks to her “angels” and say, “Hi! Bat Mama is here.” “Everything remains rustic,” she says, “and I just try to use indigenous materials. I also make sure that the bats are fully protected.”
In 2011, Monfort was honored as one of the “Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund Conservation Heroes.” The award is bestowed to “extraordinary individuals who are passionate about protecting animals and habitats in areas of critical concern.”
Winning the award, she said, means helping further the cause of bat conservation in the country and elsewhere. In her letter to her friends, she wrote: “That I have been given this recognition is simply signaling more work lies ahead for me using this ‘tool’ and putting it into good use… There is so much to be accomplished that I plan to leave behind for the children of the world…”
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