When I first arrived in Taiwan I noticed many bats in the city early evening around street lights catching insects. I noticed a year or two ago I never really see that anymore.
And it seems here is the reason why.
Will they go extinct in Taiwan?:
Not sure where you are, but there are tons of bats in Taipei. If you go to any park around dusk, you can see swarms of them. In an insect rich environment like Taiwan, it’s hard to imagine them going extinct.
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Although that is encouraging, the reduction from 500,000 to 200,000 in 9 years is sad.
That is quite shocking how polluted Taiwan is.
Great research.
Now you mention I do not notice as many as before.
I wonder what was his control group?
A couple years ago, I used to go to baseball games once a month or so, and found myself distracted by bat acrobatics during early innings. So there are definitely bats in the cities, but that doesn’t mean their population is healthy.
Twenty years ago there were still many tourist destinations named Bat caves around the island. People used to go watch bat swarm at dusk, like what people do today in Austin. Now, few tourists ever visit because these caves are mostly empty.
Although, if pesticides and insecticides are the cause of bat population decline, how would Taiwan be any worse than the US? It’s not like it’s all organic agriculture in the US.
Bats are having problems in the US as well.
Bats in US suffer from some fungal and mite infections.
When I was a kid i remember there were a lot of bats at night in taoyuan. But now I don’t see many anymore come to think of it.
Seeing a lot of bats out the last few evenings, more than I can remember in a while. I guess these afternoon rains have the bugs out
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There are many bats flying between the buildings in my community at dusk. My cats and my kid like to watch them.
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I discovered some.that are roosting under the window shingles in my inlaws house. Quite cool, had no idea they were there then they shot out at sunset.
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Yep, they’re house bats, pipistrelles.
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