NEW ORLEANS — Did you know that tens of thousands of bats live in the greater New Orleans area?
According to Loyola University Professor, Dr. Craig Hood, there are many different species living in our own backyard.
Dr. Hood waits until the sun goes down to take his students to different locations for research.
One of those spots is Audubon Park where bats roost in trees such as the live oak.
For those of you who might not know about our local bats, here are some quick facts.
“Bats have one baby at a time, one or two. They take care of them until they are basically teenagers ready to go to college,” says Dr. Hood.
“They sleep during the day and are active at night.”
“All of our bats are relatively small in terms of big. They are about the size of a small sparrow, and they are all insect eating,” says Dr. Hood.
That means there are no vampire bats here.
Students can detect the different bat species in the area thanks to hand-held technology.
“Bat detectors basically are fancy tape recorders, recording that high frequency calls of bats, the eco-location calls,” says Dr. Hood.
It’s a type of microphone that can reach up to 150 feet in the air and then reveal the type of bat that is flying by.
When we played back the recording, we learned that bats make a type of clicking noise.
After recording this data, Dr. Hood hopes it will help the conservation of the bats and teach everyone about urban biology.
This means, he hopes everyone becomes more aware of the creatures that live right here in the city.
