Why You Should Add a Bat House to Your Backyard

Armed with a $25-off coupon from Gardeners Alive and a desire to make my garden more wildlife friendly, I recently ordered one of the company's bat houses for my back yard. With bats already in our suburban Chicago neighborhood, the bat house seemed like an interesting addition.

Most people who hope to attract wildlife to their yard think about birds and butterflies--not bats. But there are a lot of good reasons why you might want to consider welcoming the much-maligned bat to your backyard. And if my neighbors object to the bats, here's what I'll tell them.

Bats are one of the best natural ways to control insects in your back yard.

Hate mosquitoes? Bats eat loads of them. According to the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension, a single bat can consume 3,000 insects in one night. A typical bat colony of big brown bats can protect local farmers from attacks by 18 million root-worms each summer.

Bats begin hunting for insects at dust. After a few hours, they return to their roost (AKA, the bat house) to rest or nurse their young, called pups. They then forage occasionally throughout the night, with a final feeding around dawn. As the primary predators of night-flying insects, bats play an important role in maintaining balanced ecosystems. In the spring and summer, food is plentiful. During the fall and winter, when insects become scarcer, bats migrate to warmer weather or hibernate.

In Illinois, there are twelve species of bats that occur regularly. All are small, winged mammals. In fact, bats are the only mammals that can fly. Their heads and bodies are covered with fur, and their wings are made of hairless membranes connecting the hind legs, body, and long forelimbs.

Bats will not hurt you if you leave them alone. Healthy bats will not, according to the University of Illinois, attack humans. Bats may bite as a defense if people try to handle them. Although bats have few parasites that infect humans, a small number of bats tested each year (3%-5%, according to the University of Illinois) have rabies. It is therefore advisable not to touch or otherwise handle them. Bats found on the ground are probably sick, injured, or young bats learning to fly. They are vulnerable and may be aggressive. Do not try to pick them up.

According to the Organization for Bat Conservation, bats are not blind, and they are actually clean animals. They will not get caught in people's hair, chew through the attic of your house, interfere with backyard birds, or be disrupted by pets and children.

Last, but not least, bat populations have fallen precipitously in recent times. The Organization for Bat Conservation states that bat populations are in decline in part because of unwarranted human fear and persecution.

In putting up a bat house, I will be helping these struggling, but interesting mammals, by giving them a home.

Although I ordered my bat house from a catalog, it is possible, and perhaps less expensive, to build one. The National Wildlife Federation offers a description of how to do this.