As I write this article a massacre is taking place above my head. Sarah, the
manageress of the building I stay in, has had 'medicine' put down for the bats
in my roof. Although she says 'medicine' I know it won't profit the poor
creatures much. I should feel relief but the silence is eerie. I suppose it is
human nature to always want what you don't have. No bats when there are bats;
and bats when the bats are being polished off.
I hear the odd thump. I think it's the sound of the bats dropping from their
cosy spots in the roof-space.
Apparently it will take a couple of visits from the medicine-man before they
are all gone. He arrived at about three o'clock this afternoon, delicately
bulldozed a hole in my ceiling with a hammer and then crawled up through it. He
spent about an hour up there dusting the place with some noxious white powder
which of course drifted down the cracks round the edge of the ceiling like some
sort of malevolent snow.
The gestation periods of bats are relatively long, ranging from about 44 days
to 8 months in various species. Few produce more than a single 
offspring each
year, and the young tend to mature slowly. The abundance of bats despite their
low individual reproductive performances is attributable not only to the
survival value of their habits but also to their remarkable longevity. Some
larger species of megabats and the smaller vampire bat have survived in zoos for
20 years. Among various species of microbats banded and released in the wild,
many have been recaptured after years of freedom. The record is a specimen
recovered 31 years after it was initially marked and released in New England. In
all, 850 to 900 species of bats exist, far more than in any other mammalian
order except the order of rodents,
I tell myself that this butchery needs to be done because bats are vermin,
and pose a threat to my health and well-being. It's not much comfort though
tonight as I'm aware that the 'innocents' in my roof are living on borrowed
time. I feel guilty and ill at ease. I know that it is from my insistence that
they be dealt with that this carnage is taking place.
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