The value of bats in monitary form no-less than $3 billion dollars and counting

Today I was sent a link to an interesting new article about the value of bats from an economic standpoint. This recent SCIENCE article (summary link here) suggests that bats may be worth at least $3 billion dollars per year in the services they provide (free of charge I am left to assume but if they started charging bats would be rolling in cash to say the least!)

The article 'Economic Importance of Bats in Agriculture' by Boyles, Cryan, McCracken and Kunz was published in Science this month (331: 6025, April 2011) (for link click HERE). A figure (above) from Boyles et al. 2011 (SCIENCE) illustrates the worth of insectivorous bats with warmer (redder) colors indicating higher financial worth relative to cooler colors (yellow) in the US.

Indeed, the bat-services discussed in the article are focused on those of pest-control by insectivorous bats. Because insectivorous bats must eat many insects every night to maintain their high metabolic demands they are responsible for maintaining lower agricultural pests that would otherwise destroy crops. Thus bats are able to save farmers costs in pesticide use. As the horrific White Nose Syndrome moves gradually westward we can hope these services will still be performed by hungry bats in the West not yet impacted by the disease. However, the Eastern bat populations have been drastically reduced in size and we might expect to see an increase need for pesticides in the near-future. Hopefully, funding of research projects aimed and limiting the spread of this disease will increase as the NSF and other funding agencies evaluate the importance of insectivorous bats in North America. This article focuses on the potential impact of White Nose Syndrome bats but it is worth recalling that world-wide bats provide many economically important services.

I would speculate the monetary value of bats in general supersedes that speculated by the authors of the article given other important services provided by bats such as pollination of plants including agaves that result in tequila in the tropics. Furthermore, the dispersal of seeds of remote islands and after hurricanes is another important bat-service. Regardless, the focus of the article is to make people aware of White-Nose Syndrome as something very scary that can impact us all even if we are not bat enthusiasts. I commend the authors for their article that will hopefully help inform the public and legislators while enticing them with considerations of the economic importance of bats.