Here’s an experience I’ll never forget from our years living in the deep south… We had just gotten a new kitten and she slept in a little bed next to ours. One night I woke up b/c she was just going NUTS! I looked over the edge of the bed and saw a dark creature flailing around near the nightlight. I literally jumped up on the bed and screamed (that is TRUE…I was quite a sight…never so freaked out in my life!) nearly giving my husband a heart attack. He hit the lights and said grab something! Running into the spare room, I grabbed the biggest book I could find that wasn’t holy – Webster’s Dictionary – and handed it to my dear husband. Using the book, he smashed it, still not knowing what it was.
It was a bat. I felt bad that he killed it, but I was also NOT willing to have one in my apartment! We took the carcass to the apartment manager the next morning (which I’m sure she appreciated…). Had I realized a single brown bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitos in an hour, I’m sure I would have felt even worse!!
Ever since then, I’ve had a major aversion to BATS. So you can imagine my horror when one of my kiddos brought home the Magic School Bus book called “The Truth about Bats.” While I still don’t like them, I’ve come to appreciate them as pretty amazing creatures. And, it’s in that spirit I’m sharing this announcement from the City of Boise… ENJOY!
Bats are much misunderstood and sometimes feared. A panel of experts who will introduce children and adults to the wonderful world of bats at a free program from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14 at the Foothills Learning Center, 3188 Sunset Peak Road. Admission is free; no registration is required.
Learn about the biology of bats, see live bats, and make a bat box to install at home or to donate to a public land agency. Vicky Runnoe, conservation education supervisor with the Idaho Department of Fish & Game and Claudia Williams, education coordinator at the Animals in Distress Association (AIDA), will tell you all about these fabulous flying mammals. AIDA is a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and release of injured, displaced and orphaned wildlife. They will likely bring a couple of live bats to the program and will have specimens to look at up close.
Presentations will be repeated from 10:15- noon and from 12:15- 2 p.m. Starting at 11 a.m., a group of senior Girl Scouts will help children and adults make bat boxes. Other bat-related arts and craft activities will be ongoing throughout the day.
The Foothills Learning Center is operated by Boise Parks & Recreation. The building is located in Hulls Gulch Preserve north of downtown Boise. To get there, take 8th Street 1/3 mile past the end of the pavement. The building is located beyond the parking lot on the right.
For information, call 514-3755 or see www.cityofboise.org/parks/foothills. ###
Media contacts:
Jennie Rylee, Environmental Education, 514-4845 Kristin Lundstrom, Environmental Education, 514-3755
1 Comment
July 13, 2009 at 8:59 pm
I met a gal at the Idaho Humane Society who has a pet bat. It goes with her everywhere – and we’re not talking in a cage, either. She carries it under her shirt in her, er, bosom!