Horn Lake hoping bats will help take the bite out of summer

It was a bad summer for outdoor events locally because of mosquitoes, but Horn Lake officials hope an event Saturday will help address the problem in the future.

A previously announced activity at the city's Latimer Lakes Park will unveil a bat house and seek to educate the public about the benefits of bat colonies.

One of the benefits is that they eat the kinds of flying insects that make life miserable for many during outdoor summer events.New Style Jeans pnikeairshoes on sale with fast delivery!

"A single bat can eat between 1,000 and 6,000 insects per night," said Shea Staten,Any of our wintert-shirts can be customized with your school a member of the Mississippi Bat Working Group.

"This summer was absolutely terrible for any event held in the evenings because of the mosquitoes," said Carson Culver, youth specialist for the library.Provides enterprise data solutionshublotreplica, real-time data distribution,Say NO to extra high prices for a agatebeads! "We had a mild winter, and they were out in such force."

The bat house to be unveiled Saturday would serve as home for a bat colony that organizers hope will develop. Representatives of the Memphis Zoo also will participate.

Culver said the idea of cultivating a bat colony in the park was born out of a donation of a bat house from Horn Lake resident Kristen Acevedo. She and Culver began to talk about bats and what a wonderful resource they are in controlling the mosquito population.

Acevedo also put Culver in touch with her uncle David Parrott, a volunteer with the Memphis Zoo specializing in bats. Then Culver and representatives of Horn Lake parks visited the Memphis Zoo and got a behind-the-scenes look at its bat facility and made contact with the Mississippi Bat Working Group.

"There are so many misconceptions about bats," said Staten. "People worry about rabies, but only 1 percent of bats carry the virus and people fear bats because of things they see in Hollywood movies that are just not true."

Staten's mission Saturday is to inform the public about the benefits of bats, not just in parks but in residential and even urban locations.

Staten said that because of their consumption of harmful insects, bats save the agricultural industry billions of dollars and allow them to limit the use of pesticides. Because of this assistance to farmers, strong bat populations also hold down food costs.

One of the more common bats in this area is the Big Brown Bat. Big, however, is a bit of a misnomer. This breed of bat only weighs between .4 and .8 ounces, though it does have a wing span of 13 to 16 inches.

Staten said the most important thing to know about bats, like many other wild animals, is if you leave them alone, they have no interest in bothering humans.

"Bat populations are dying off due to loss of habitat, and they can be of so much good in any environment," he said.

During the Saturday event Staten, will teach people how to locate and hang bat houses and will have information on where to purchase proper bat houses and how to construct one.

Once a colony forms in the park, members of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts will keep track of the bat population and their flight habits through monthly Bat Watches.

The first Bat Watch event is scheduled for Oct. 27 to coincide with Horn Lake's Fright Night at the Park. The Bat Watches are set for 6 p.m. — about dusk, the best time to observe the colony.

The bat house being hung this weekend holds about 100 bats. The hope is that the park will be able to add several 500-capacity bat houses by the end of 2013, Culver said.