Priscilla Brennan, chair of the Heidelberg Environmental Advisory Council, introduced Sandra Yerger of the Heritage Conservancy.

Yerger was to enlighten residents on the subject of bats.

A bat house, donated by The Mill in Germansville, was offered in a free raffle.

Yerger said the house , or boxes from other sources, should be painted black or dark brown because they hold heat better and bats prefer a daytime temperature, when they are resting,, of between 90 and 100 degrees.

A house should be erected at least 12-feet above the ground and face south or southwest and a good place to erect houses is on organic farms because there are no chemical sprays, she explained.

They have to be within one-half mile of a good water source.

Yerger said she has been studying bats for 10 years and works with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

She said bats are the only true flying mammal.

A stuffed bat toy she held up had the correct wingspan for a Little Brown Bat. She stroked the toy and said real bats are just as soft.

There are nine species of bats in Pennsylvania. Six hibernate over winter. Three species migrate.

There used to be Little Browns by the millions but many have died from white-nose syndrome.

One bat can eat 1,200 mosquitos in an hour for five or six hours a night.

The Big Brown Bats are larger and eat crop insects, she explained. Many farmers are beginning to realize their importance.

They are known as the Farmer's Friend, and prefer to live in barns.

Yerger said people are afraid of bats because they are associated with rabies, but she said when there were Little Browns by the millions there was only one case of rabies.

She warned, though, that even if there was little danger of rabies, people should not pick one up because they are still wild animals.

The Northern Long Ear bat is rare, she explained.

They spend winter in mines in Northern Bucks County and because they crawl into crevices it is difficult to count or even determine what type one is.

Indiana Bats hibernate in caves. There were 20,000 of them but most are gone, Yerger said.

Licensed investigators stretch several rows of fish line outside a cave. Bats can usually get through two rows but a third one will cause them to fall where they can be banded.

The Hoary and Red bats prefer deep forest habitat and may migrate as far as 1,000 miles.

Bats are long-lived attaining an age of 30.

Except for the Big Brown, which has two pups, bats only have one pup a year.

Though several types may share a cave there is no interbreeding.

In spring the mother bat will leave the cave and circle to find her baby.

They have an excellent sense of smell and are loyal to their young.

The males leave first and wait around outside the hibernation site until the females leave and are impregnated.

The Heritage Conservancy owns a mine in New Jersey, the Durham Bat Mine.

When they took it over a logbook was found that people signed and proudly said how many bats they had killed.

It is now closed off to people but bats can pass through the bars.

The white-nose syndrome was brought over from Europe although it seems as though European bats have adapted

Yerger hopes that will happen here.

When people enter the mine they wear HazMat suits so they do not carry the fungus into the mine.

The syndrome flourishes during the winter in the damp but lessens during the dry summer.

There is a possibility a virus is attached to the fungus but that has not been positively determined.

The fungus itches and wakes the bats during hibernation which causes them to use up their stored food and many starve.

The syndrome is most devastating east of the Mississippi River.

Two different fungicides have been tried but the syndrome is not affected by them.

Bats are considered a Keystone species.

Nothing in our system can replace them as insectivores.

The Conservancy has been tracking maternal colonies and found that they have a 50-mile radius from their home base.

They were tracked by radio transmitters that fall off in three to four days.

The males spend their summer in single or duo groups and find a dark crevice to home in.

Echolocation, their means of locating insects which is why their pathways dart this way and that, is being studied by the military as a possible better quality of sonar.

They are not blind but have as good vision as people do.

Guano is still marketed as a fertilizer.

Owls, red-tailed hawks and raccoons are among the predators of bats but it has never been considered an issue. Wind turbines are also a danger.

Residents are asked to encourage legislators to allocate funding for research, support conservation and research, educate people and plant native plants.

The Pa. Game Commission wanted to list Little Browns as endangered but industries objected and it never even came up for discussion.