May the best bat win.
The Bureau of Land Management is hosting its fifth annual Bat Beauty Pageant to celebrate Bat Week, pitting some of the most popular winged creatures of the night against each other.
The competition is a two-part effort to celebrate the scariest time of the year while strengthening efforts to protect bats as they face increasing threats from habitat loss, disease and of light pollution, said Emma Busk, the office’s wildlife technician.
Busk specifically pointed out the many common misconceptions against bats, including a false propensity for diseases like rabies.
“There is a lot of fear and misconception around bats, but less than 1% of all bat populations actually carry rabies, and transmission of the disease between bats and the man is actually very weak,” Busk said.
The beauty pageant began in 2019 to raise awareness of the ecological importance of the bat, like other viral celebrations like Fat Bear Week. The federal agency shares photos of the candidates on its Facebook and Instagram accounts and lets the public decide which of the bats is the cutest.
All bats featured are in wild populations and live on public lands, but are photographed and named by agency staff.
The bats’ names may play a bigger role in the contest than their cuteness.
Last year’s winner was a female Townsend’s big-eared bat from southern Oregon, nicknamed “William ShakespEAR.” In 2022, however, a simple canyon bat named “Barbara” from southern Oregon has won.
This year, Busk is supporting “Hoary Potter,” an Oregon hoary bat that she photographed for the competition. His favorite to win was pitted Thursday against Townsend’s big-eared bat named “Sir Flaps-A-Lot” from Utah.
Neither species is listed as endangered, but Oregon has both on a list of species requiring conservation attention. Utah did the same, but only for Townsend’s big-eared bat.
“Our effort each year is simply to collect as much data as possible on the species in our resource area, so we know how to better protect them in the future,” Busk said.
Townsend’s big-eared bats, like the one featured in the competition, are known for their ears, as their name aptly suggests. Their ears can stretch up to 1.5 inches, almost a third of their average body size.
The hoary bat earned its competition name for its rapid flight and camouflage ability, making it “the ideal candidate for seeker on this year’s Quidditch team,” the agency said.
The beauty pageant is expected to end on Halloween this Thursday.
With post wires.
