Last Wednesday and Saturday, I posted two diaries begging for donations to Bat World Sanctuary to help build the Bat Castle, which will house thousands of bats that soon will be evicted from their decades-long homes.
We raised $762! That will buy a lot of cement blocks for the Castle!
For thanks, below the squiggle find photos of the partially completed Castle, new amazing videos (including one of Lil' Drac), and how you can ADOPT a bat, including Lil' Drac!
The Bat Castle
First, here are some photos of the growing Bat Castle! Tens of thousands of bats in Mineral Wells, Texas are going to lose their homes, where they have roosted for decades, due to new development.
New development is good, but so are bats! Because there are so many bats in Mineral Wells, the city doesn't need to spray pesticides to eradicate mosquitoes. So Bat World Sanctuary is building a new Bat Castle for the evicted bats as part of their new Bat World Complex on protected land that has been donated for the purpose. They got a grant for $25,000 for the Castle, but when they started construction they found out that they'd need more money. That's where you helped!
Here are some photos of the castle under construction:
In the last photo, the walls are eight feet high. They will be 16 feet high when finished, so it looks like we're halfway there! Bat World hopes to have the Castle finished in a week or two, just in time for the bats to move in. There they will be protected and have a permanent home, so they can continue vacuuming mosquitoes from the sky. Over decades, hundreds of thousands of bats will live there safely.
New Videos
Here are a couple of heartwarming videos of one of Bat World's major efforts: saving orphans and releasing them back to the wild. This is their video about "Bones," a starving orphan found in the summer of 2010. (The tiny foam tips they use to feed the babies come from eyeshadow applicators.)
And here's a more general video about their efforts to save orphans:
Here's Amanda introducing the "Little River Eight" into the flight cage. Amanda remarks that the bats are "yellow." That's because they had a poor diet at their roadside zoo. With the good diet they'll get at Bat World, eventually they'll turn the proper color of Egyptian fruit bats:
(If this video hangs up, reload and it should work.)
Peekaboo and Edward were rescued from zoo closures and raised together. Here's the charming video of their first experience in the flight cage, where they now live:
And as promised, here's the latest video of Lil' Drac. The fruit bats get hand-fed treats twice a day. Lil' Drac prefers to get his in a flyby:
Adopt A Bat!
The Little River Eight, Peekaboo, Lil' Drac and other bats are available for adoption! Well, symbolically. They'll stay at Bat World, but you'll get a nice adoption package with a lovely photo of your bat, and a warm glow from knowing that you have aided this excellent cause.
Bat World was kind enough to give me a bat! I chose "Mini Me." You can read her story on the adoption page. Here she is:
Personally, I think she's adorable, but that might just be a "mom" talking.
THANKS AGAIN!!
So thanks again for your help last week! If you'd still like donate to Bat World, or to the Bat Castle, here's the link: https://www.batworld.org/... (The donation widget in the last diary appears to have died.)
They also have a very active Facebook Page.
Hope you enjoyed the videos!
Finally, here's Lil' Drac having breakfast in bed. Or rather, as he is nocturnal, a bedtime snack. He loves bananas. (Although he could roost with his bat friends, he still chooses to sleep in his fake lambswool bat hut, which Amanda hangs for him every morning.)
Disclaimer: Bat World Sanctuary has not authorized this diary. I'm doing this on my own.