Bats are not blind, or only live in caves and suck blood, as pop culture has led us to believe.   But they do serve as nature’s silent pest control and are vital pollinators, playing a crucial role in the reproduction of many plants. In the Santa Clarita Valley, residents, if lucky, can spot bats also known as chiroptera in scientific terms, right outside their backyard or near a large body of water.   On Nov. 22, College of the Canyons held a science, technology, engineering and mathematics speaker series in efforts to engage, inform, and inspire students pursuing STEM careers.   Jessi Vannatta, a COC adjunct professor and environmental scientist for California State Parks, delivered a presentation called “All Things Bats!” a topic she’s researched since graduate school and worked on for over a decade.   The misunderstood flying mammal and its beneficial contributions to the environment was the topic of the night, with many students in attendance making it a successful evening filled with engaging questions and fun facts debunking common myths and misconceptions.   The chiroptera species “do a lot of important things that benefit us directly and the environment as well. An ecosystem service would be pest control, especially the species around here,” she said. “That’s mostly what we have, insect-eating bats and they eat lots and lots of different types of insects,” said Vannatta.    Bats don’t just consume unwanted pests lingering around someone’s backyard, but they also help reduce the number of agricultural insects and, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the natural pest control that bats provide is “extremely valuable to the state’s $54 billion per year agriculture and $450 million timber industries. The bats’ appetite reduces the need for chemical pesticides, reduces crop losses and curtails the spread of crop diseases.”   Canyon Bat (Parastrellus hesperus – left, detected on Canyon Country Campus) and California Myotis (Myotis californicus – right) Courtesy of Jessi Vannatta Vannatta has focused her research up north in the Hungry Valley, with the advanced technology of acoustic detectors, and at least 15 different bat species have been identified as of the publication of this story and “there’s a potential for many of those to also be in the Santa Clarita Valley,” she said.   Recently Vannatta has placed bat detectors in both the COC Canyon Country and Valencia campuses in hopes to learn more about the local flying mammals. So far at least two different species have been detected in Canyon Country, including the Mexican free-tailed bat and the pallid bat. Vannatta still has to process her data from the Valencia campus, as she just placed the detectors this past semester.   Throughout the presentation, she also discussed the current threat they face, which includes climate change and white-nose syndrome, a fatal fungal disease that affects the flying mammals and isn’t a threat to humans.   “The changing of seasonal patterns and temperatures and more extreme weather events can greatly impact their life cycle. Heat waves can cause the pups to die because it’s too hot for them and wherever they’re roosting. It can just change their whole seasonality pattern,” she said.   White-nose syndrome has been detected in California, Vannatta said, and it’s a growing concern since it was first recorded in “the winter of 2007-2008 … in cold humid conditions such as caves and mines,” stated the United States Geological Survey. “Millions of insect-eating bats in at least 40 states and eight Canadian provinces have died from this devastating disease.”  “It’s going to be really interesting, because it’s a big unknown as to how it’s going to affect the bat species out here. I would say that it is a big potential threat, but we won’t really know until it starts popping up more in the populations and how severely it’s going to affect them,” she said, adding that due to the fatal disease several bat species on the east side of the United States have been listed as threatened and endangered.  In August 2023, the Los Angeles County Public Health Department reported that out of 50 rabid bats reported in the county, 32 of them were located in the SCV.    Jessi Vannatta, an environmental scientist for California State Parks and COC adjunct professor speaks about all things bats at the COC STEM Speaker Series on Friday, Nov. 22, 2024. Katherine Quezada/The Signal Although rabies isn’t prevalent in bats and about “1 out of 1,000 are infected” stated the Public Health report, it did grow concern from the public and “for some reason there seems to be a higher incidence of rabies-positive bats,” she said. “It’s interesting because usually most reported prevalence of rabies and bats is low … it’s usually a very low percentage in the population that actually do have it. So it seems to be some sort of strange anomaly,” she added.  Vannatta did encourage people to never handle bats or any wild animals on their own to prevent exposure to disease, and to call professionals immediately if they encounter an unwanted bat nearby.   “Any animal, any mammal, could have rabies … There’s a risk for disease or being bitten if we handle any wild animal. Observe from a distance,” she advised.  The presentation was focused on emphasizing the animals’ positive contributions to wildlife and ecosystems.   “Without them, we would lose a lot of things that we rely on like our food sources … coffee, chocolate, fruit, all of those things, a lot of them are primarily pollinated, or the seeds are spread by bats. If we didn’t have them, we would lose all of those important goods,” she said.   Residents can seek out bats in local areas and it isn’t super difficult to see them at night, Vannatta said. “A lot of people tell me, ‘I’ve never seen a bat flying around or anything,’ but a lot of times it’s just because people haven’t really looked up and paid attention.”   Vannatta suggested bat seekers can view them safely and from a distance, at Castaic Lake or other bodies of water where many insects such as mosquitoes may linger, and bats will likely be spotted feeding once the sun begins to set. The Bridgeport Marketplace lake near Valencia Heritage Park is another place bats can be spotted, she added.   Vannatta hopes to continue researching the local bats with acoustic surveys and temporarily capturing them to take excrement samples, body size measurements, and record their activity patterns and submit them to the Department of Fish and Wildlife for other scientists to access.   She added: “Because we don’t know, with white-nose syndrome and everything else, how these species might decline, it’s important to have those samples for people to potentially use to study the species in the future, so we like to collaborate and help in whatever way we can.”   Mexican Free-tailed Bat (Tadarida brasiliensis). Acoustically detected on Canyon Country Campus. Courtesy of Jessi Vannatta. The post How SCV’s flying mammals play a crucial role in the ecosystem  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.