Refurbishing an old thread

Before the website overhaul I wrote this thread (below link) in a now incompatible format.

https://permies.com/t/9184/permaculture/Bats-effective-insect-control

I wanted to polish it up and add a little more content. Because I can no longer modify the original thread can an admin replace the text with what I provided below. It should work by simply copy-paste.

I am looking into designing habitat for bats in an agricultural setting while looking into research on cost savings that these interesting creatures may provide to a farmer. For example, lets look at the Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus) [img]http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/1617/brownbat.jpg?jfc=cache-serve[/img][img]http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/6785/batmap.jpg?jfc=cache-serve[/img] [list]Life expectancy is between 1 to 30 years[/list] [list]Eats typically 1,200 insects in just one hour (grossly more effective then insect carnivores)[/list] [list]Typically consume 50 to over 100 percent of their body weight per night (weigh on average .42 ounce)[/list] [list]Consumes moths, gnats, crickets, locusts, mosquitoes, fruit flies, and other crop pests but not exclusively.[/list] [list]Compatible pest control measure with bees (bats are nocturnal)[/list] SO what are the options that I have to more bats? Most people make or buy bat houses but here is my reasons for bias against them. [list]Require maintenance (admittedly cost effective)[/list] [list]You will need many (to say the least) for high capacity populations[/list] [list]They usually do not provide ideal overwintering protection (hibernation)[/list] [list]Eventually need to be replaced[/list] [list]Wasps have a tendency to nest[/list] [list]Less permanent so there is much less likelihood of developing very large colonies[/list] As far as my research has led me, I believe a man made bat cave is an ideal for my ambitions. Because their fixed durable structures, bats are much more likely inclined to populate these for long periods of time. These provide space for hibernation, breeding, and are preferred habitats to bats. Bats are social animals that enjoy the safety gained in large populations, which is why you often see them in communities. Eventually as the artificial cave develops a profile with the bat community, it will bolster local population levels of benefiting bats which will in turn benefit farmers. An example of a bat cave. [img]http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/5951/friobatcave.jpg?jfc=cache-serve[/img] The largest bat cave in the world is located in Texas at Bracken cave. It houses an estimated 20 million bats in a roughly 5 acre complex. If I use this to scale the size requirements of an ideal man made bat cave then a cave with an area of 1/8th an acre should be able to house half a million bats. Also ceiling height is an important consideration but I am lacking on sufficient data to make any educated calculations. Now using a template consisting of half a million bats if I use this ideal population goal I can then calculate the predatory impact on the local environment. 500000 (population)x .42 (weight of each bat in ounces) x .75 (ratio of body weight eaten) = 157500 ounces of insects eaten [b]Exactly 9843.75 pounds of insects eaten per night from a population of half a million bats residing in an 1/8th acre cave at full occupancy.[/b] Even with a decent margin of error and a quarter of the capacity the local impact on insect populations is amazing. I am honestly surprised that I do not see this type of data on bats in these forums. In my opinion, bats provide the best high volume insect control solution uncontended. But lets be honest, the population figure here is extraordinary. I merely wanted to state the potential of the scheme. Lets look at a more realistic calculation. Lets assume I built the cave and after a few years the population grew to a modest 6000. This number seems large, but also consider that building a bat cave is not a thing to measure instant results and that it takes time to develop a mature system. It is incredibly difficult to mathematically calculate the growth rate of a bat population. There are many design considerations including the location and design of the entrance to increase profile. In many respects it can be considered a creative skill versus a function of growth. So moving on to my calculation, with this number we can predict the following. 6000 (population)x .42 (weight of each bat in ounces) x .75 (ratio of body weight eaten) = 1890 ounces of insects eaten [b]Exactly 118.125 pounds of insects eaten per night from a population of 6 thousand bats in a modest setting.[/b] A fraction of those insects can produce a lot of damage to a farmer. In 118 pounds you are looking at millions of insects. Not even liberal application of pesticides can produce results as good without costs or concerns on the environmental health hazards. Other then an investment on the construction, money and some time a bat cave is a self sustaining measure to control insects in your permaculture designs. For examples of man made habitat I found a good read on a bridge that supports a colony of 600 thousand bats at http://www.batcon.org/pdfs/BATSmag/BATSSummer05a.pdf Common myths: Bats are unfairly stereotyped as rabid. There is a myth floating around that 1-5% of bats have rabies. This is a misinterpretation from a statistic on bats being sent to the lab for testing. From the suspected infected bats sent to the lab only 5% actually test positive for rabies. Because of lack of understanding what this means, the inaccurate statistic was made and carried on to bat populations in general. In actuality, bat attacks are incredibly rare. Most of these attacks were completely avoidable by people who put themselves in these situations. So here are some good links for researching. http://www.bathouseforum.org/forum/]http://www.bathouseforum.org/forum/ (community of enthusiasts like here) http://www.batcon.org/ (organization for bat research and conservation) http://www.life.umd.edu/faculty/wilkinson/honr278c/PDF/Miller01.pdf (data that supports concepts for insect electronic warfare) [b]Successful man made bat caves:[/b] Texas - Selah Bamberger Ranch Preserve Completed in 1998, the Chiroptorium is designed to house 1 million Mexican Free-tailed Bats. For the first few years, bats came and went. Most seemed to be travelers; they would stay for a few days or sometimes for a few months. There was much early publicity, as everyone was anxious to report about this eccentric project and predict what the results might be. http://bambergerranch.org/the-bats-of-selah/ [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxGuLKNdDmw[/youtube] [img]http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/745/batsemerg1.jpg?jfc=cache-serve[/img][img]http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/1859/chirop.jpg?jfc=cache-serve[/img][img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1mY5w9ZnXCs/TLKysRXqP4I/AAAAAAAABk4/48kvEOcnM1c/s400/Framework.jpg[/img][img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1mY5w9ZnXCs/TLKy4UqeGkI/AAAAAAAABlA/BypcsStkwEM/s400/Gunnite.jpg[/img] Tennessee - Cave & Karst Program for the Conservancy in Tennessee The concrete box buried in a hillside is almost as long as a basketball court, but only half as wide. It has surveillance cameras that detect heat without getting warm or making any noise due to the possibility that any noise disturbance could be a deter the bats moving in. The goal is to offer bats a safe winter home, where every summer humans could go inside and clean out any lurking fungus, keeping white-nose syndrome in check. http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/tennessee/artificial-bat-cave-2012-large.pdf (detailed plans for the artificial cave) [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTQRU8bVOQ8[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RonM4qJ99Pk[/youtube] [img]http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/09/20/artificial-cave-entrances-2297e5eb21df402b05707a1abacb7f0e3e9171cd-s3.jpg?jfc=cache-serve[/img][img]http://www.nature.org/cs/groups/webcontent/@web/@tennessee/documents/media/artificial-bat-cave-2012.png?jfc=cache-serve[/img]

Any help please.....?

I haven't fully compared the 2 posts. Is it just the formatting that you have changed with them? If so, I can fix that part in the original thread.

It removes the visible code and I included an additional video at the bottom for a recent project from Tennessee called the Cave & Karst Program.

I've updated the post in that thread. Please take a look and see if it's fine.

Excellent, thanks for your help!