Thousands of Australia’s largest bats, mostly flying foxes, die slow, painful deaths each year after becoming snagged and entangled on the barbed-wire fences that spread around much of the nation’s farms and rangelands. Carcasses of other wildlife, especially gliders (possum-like marsupials that glide like flying squirrels), also are found dangling from the wires. The problem is so widespread that conservation groups...more

Attitudes about bats in the Cayman Islands have changed dramatically since Lois Blumenthal began the National Trust Bat Conservation Program in 1994. Back then, they were called “rat-bats” and routinely exterminated. Today, pest-control companies exclude bats humanely from homes and buildings, and most residents of the three Cayman Islands have learned to appreciate the ecological and economic values of the nine bat species that are the islands’ only native mammals. ...more

Scotland’s bats are having an especially tough time this year, says The Scotsman newspaper. “Reports have come from the Highlands – and elsewhere in Britain – of bats being weakened and forced to abandon their young by this summer’s poor weather and a consequent shortage of the insects on which the flying mammals feed.” Reporter Jim Gilchrist notes that the United Kingdom’s 17 bat species are now protected by law...more