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Midday flight by bats puzzles shoppers
By MARY SPICUZZA, Times Staff Writer PORT RICHEY -- Nobody seemed to know why hundreds of bats descended on a Port Richey shopping center on Thursday. But everybody had a theory. "It's too hot for the humans, the dogs and the bats," Robert Onstad of Moon Lake said. Onstad, 53, said several people told him that 1,000 bats were flying around in broad daylight at Regency Square, at Little Road and Embassy Boulevard. Late Thursday afternoon, he was holding a plastic Coca-Cola cup with four tiny, scrambling bats inside. And he was peering at the 40-foot-high structure that holds a sign at the entrance of the center. It seemed that the bats had been living inside it until their midday flight. McDonald's restaurant employee Mike Galvin, 17, said he saw "tons" of them flying around shortly after noon. Nick Blakeney, 17, who works at Water Max N' Ice, said workers had recently fixed a hole in another 40-foot-high shopping center post, which had been filled with bats. That might be what brought the bats out during the day. "They fly by night for a reason: to eat nighttime insects," said Bob Benson of Bat Conservation International Inc. "If they come out during the day, it's usually because they've been disturbed by some person." Bats are fairly accustomed to heat, Benson said, and high temperatures bother them only if it hasn't rained in days. From his office in Austin, Texas, Benson said it sounded as if a group of bats had been evicted from its roost. "It sounds like the displaced bats are looking for a new abode," he said. He urged people to be careful around the bats and to leave touching them to licensed wildlife handlers. Although bats aren't normally aggressive, they can carry rabies. "They do bite in self-defense," Benson said. People looking to help homeless bats could build bat houses -- quiet, dark structures for bats to roost. Onstad said he had simpler plans for the bats in his cup. He was going keep them in a couple of cages until they were healthy enough to join the other bats living in the wild near his home. His wife wasn't quite as enthusiastic. "I know they're cool looking, but what are you going to do with them?" Paula Onstad asked her husband. "Cause we've got to go into Walgreens."
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From today's Pasco Times Letters |
