People tend to be fearful of bats but there are many reasons to appreciate them. Insect-eating bats, for instance, prey on pest-insects found in rice, cotton and corn fields and vineyards. There are, in fact, a lot of insect prey that bats feed on, helping our food security.

India has around 130 species of bats, some of them unique to the country. The icon for bat conservation in India would be the Kolar leaf-nosed bat, a critically endangered species found in just one cave in Kolar. There are only an estimated 250 individuals left in that colony. Unfortunately, these bats remain completely unprotected; they don’t figure in Schedule 1 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act.

Bats provide not just ecosystem services but also economic benefits, through the use of bat guano or bat poop. In the caves of south-east Asia and India, bats produce huge amounts of guano that can be used as natural fertiliser. In south-east Asia, this is often mined in a regulated fashion, minimising the disturbance to bats. It can be quite an attractive proposition commercially.

During fieldwork, I have seen that people are not harming bats, as they used to, though attitudes towards them have not changed much. Bats are still not appreciated as much as they should be. That’s one of the things that strikes me about the International Bat Appreciation Day (celebrated on 17 April). For most other animals, you have an international conservation day; here, there is no mention of the word “conservation”.

In order to prevent zoonotic diseases, we have to learn to coexist with nature. Human health is closely linked to the health of the ecosystem. The covid-19 virus is thought to have originated from the horseshoe bat. These bats don’t live very close to humans. The interface between man and nature is changing, leading to new diseases. This cannot be ignored. At least the large-scale economic loss should drive home the fact that we have to live in harmony with nature.