PHIL LATZMAN: It’s a June evening near Phoenix/Paradise Valley border and the temperature is 108 degrees. But there’s a cool spot, literally and figuratively.
I’m walking with Angie McIntire, who is the bat specialist for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Alongside a canal and tucked into the ground is a 2-mile long flood control tunnel. And inside, it’s fluttering with activity.
ANGIE MCINTIRE: The species that lives in this tunnel is a very adaptable species. It’s the Mexican free-tailed bat. It lives in urban situations quite readily. This tunnel has been here since the mid-1990s when it was created to prevent flooding in the Phoenix area. The bats moved in somewhere around the late 1990s. So, structures like this that keep bat species cooler in our hot summers are quite popular with certain species of bats.
PHIL LATZMAN: And when it comes to diversity, Arizona ranks second only to Texas with 29 different species. But these are big city bats.
ANGIE MCINTIRE: You know, you have other species of bats that are more particular about where they live and wouldn't be caught dead in the middle of Phoenix. And then but then you've got your species that take advantage of our culverts, tunnels and bridges.
PHIL LATZMAN: McIntire never imagined a future revolving around bats. But after graduating from ASU in the '90s with a degree in wildlife conservation, she got an internship surveying the winged creatures.
ANGIE MCINTIRE: And I just fell in love with them. Most people haven’t seen bats up close, but all their faces are very different. They’re just endlessly fascinating.
PHIL LATZMAN: And yes she says, the flying mammals have a reputation problem.
ANGIE MCINTIRE: I do believe that they're still very misunderstood. You know, people think that all bats have rabies and um bats get caught in your hair, and I mean, I've been in caves with millions of bats flying all around me, and I have long hair. [laughter] I've never had a bat get caught in my hair. I've never had a bat, you know, attack me or anything like that.
PHIL LATZMAN: Or suck your blood?
ANGIE MCINTIRE: Or suck my blood. Yeah, bats just don't do those sorts of things.
PHIL LATZMAN: We arrive at the cave a half hour before sunset and there are already other visitors waiting for the big bat reveal. How many do we expect?
ANGIE MCINTIRE: This site, we say, has about 10,000 bats. The tunnel is about 2 miles long, and the bats are roosting on either end of the tunnel. Um, so there's probably a few thousand on each end.
PHIL LATZMAN: And all of them are females. Many of them are pregnant and preparing their roost for pups, which are usually born in the early summer.
And then, the moment of truth.
ANGIE MCINTIRE: There they go! We're seeing them just start to leave the roost. They're kind of flying up and over.
PHIL LATZMAN: In a whoosh, a rapid, steady stream of winged creatures dart out of the tunnel, eventually disappearing into the evening sky at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour, making these Mexican free-tailed bats the fastest mammals in the world.
ANGIE MCINTIRE: They probably go, they have different hunting spots, maybe tonight, depending on where the insect activity is good—and how bats know that is anyone's guess. Um, yeah, so they're just flying out for their meal.
PHIL LATZMAN: What’s their meal?
ANGIE MCINTIRE: This species predominantly specializes on moths, uh a lot of agricultural pests, um insects that eat crops. Um, and so, they're so cool though, look at that (laughter).
PHIL LATZMAN: While humans may not be able to hear it, there’s a cacophony of bat chatter in the air. McIntire pulls out a special device, about the size of a small tablet, to take a listen.
ANGIE MCINTIRE: This is called an AnaBat, this particular model, and it listens for the ultrasonic sounds that a bat is making as it's echolocating. And it makes it audible to us. So we can't hear the bats flying over us, but with this detector, we can.
PHIL LATZMAN: We know that there are thousands of bats here. I read that one-fifth of the world's population of mammals are bats?
ANGIE MCINTIRE: That's correct. We know that there are about 1,500 different species of bats across the world.
PHIL LATZMAN: That's pretty amazing though when you think about it, that there are that many bats.
ANGIE MCINTIRE: It's amazing, and also when you start looking at all the bat faces, you know, and what and when you start thinking about what, you know, there are frog-eating bats, there are um, you know, bats that specialize on all kinds of different insects.
PHIL LATZMAN: So they help us not be so insect-infested?
ANGIE MCINTIRE: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't want a bunch of pesticides on my food, or I don't like the idea of having to spray a lot of chemicals and things, and so bats are a natural insect control. They're the number one um predator of insects at night, and so for Arizona, of our 29 species, 26 of those eat insects.
So the next time you see a bat, don’t be scared. Be grateful.
That’s Angie McIntire, the bat specialist for the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
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