Deep in the wild, hardwood forest around Lee Creek Reservoir in Crawford County, the team worked as unobtrusively as possible, even hand-carrying tools and materials through the woods. They assisted one of only two experts in the U.S. who can weld special “bat gates” over the entrances to crevasses and caves where this endangered species is known to raise a single “pup” each spring. The barriers keep out humans – yes, we are the problem – while a specific design poses no obstacle to the natural flight of the bats. Invited to see the work in progress, This reporter spent an afternoon in a dense, green Ozark forest, within 30 minutes of downtown Fort Smith, with a crew of people dedicated to preserving this imperiled species. Only about 2,000 of these bats are currently know to exist. The care being taken to protect them is difficult, but encouraging.
In May, a mostly unnoticed but mighty team of nature protectors worked together here to help secure the survival of the Ozark Big-eared Bat, Corynorhinus townsendii ingens. Deep in the wild, hardwood forest around Lee Creek Reservoir in Crawford County, the team worked as unobtrusively as possible, even hand-carrying tools and materials through the woods. They assisted one of only two experts in the U.S. who can weld special “bat gates” over the entrances to crevasses and caves where this endangered species is known to raise a single “pup” each spring. The barriers keep out humans – yes, we are the problem – while a specific design poses no obstacle to the natural flight of the bats. Invited to see the work in progress, This reporter spent an afternoon in a dense, green Ozark forest, within 30 minutes of downtown Fort Smith, with a crew of people dedicated to preserving this imperiled species. Only about 2,000 of these bats are currently know to exist. The care being taken to protect them is difficult, but encouraging.
First, I’ll never tell where I was, for the protection of this threatened species, the Ozark big-eared bat. Second, I couldn’t tell! Invited to see the installation of specialized “bat gates” by Jim Taylor, a board member of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, our rendezvous at the public dock area of Lee Creek Reservoir was my last reference to a map. We went ... into the woods. I’d never find it again.
Taylor and I met and declared ourselves safely vaccinated. This work has hinged on a time when everyone on the project could be vaccinated. Then we took other precautions: a hearty shower of chigger repellant spray, front and back, head to toe. I climbed on the back of a four-wheeler behind Jonathon Baxter, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and held on as we turned uphill into the trees, climbing in low gear over rocky ground, splashing across chutes of run-off water streaming downhill and swerving around tree trunks, with teeth-rattling jolts.
After a year of pandemic confinement it was exhilarating to be deep in the woods, ducking branches and catching sigh of patches of the perfect blue sky. We were immersed in green. There was no trail, although Baxter pointed out muddy ruts where the heavy angle iron bars had to be dragged over the rugged terrain. Rains would soon melt those traces away.
We dismounted and walked up to the flat, mossy top of a stone bluff, although trees were rooted into its cracks. There was no clearing. Many feet below, I could hear, but barely see, Lee Creek rushing over boulders as it descended noisily to the reservoir. We followed a long, orange air compressor hose connected to a running generator. It snaked over the edge, where I saw only the top of a long extension ladder leaned against the bluff’s edge. Far below, the ladder’s legs stood on a pitched-up wedge of bluff, which has been fracturing off in enormous slices since time unknown. Even farther below, my tour leaders pointed out the brightly-colored hard hat of the welder’s helper, visible through leaves and branches. Where they were working beneath us, Taylor said, they couldn’t hear the generator.
Pedro Ardapple of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is based in Conway, Ark. and is another team member on this bat gate project and in protecting cave-dwelling creatures such as bats, cave fish, amphibians and insects. The field office offers best management practices to private landowners who have cave topography on their property, including the possibility of installing cave gates. In this project on City of Fort Smith property, the team includes pertinent city staff along with related Arkansas Game & Fish Commission staff. The next bat gate project will be at Devil’s Den, which brings in the Arkansas State Parks department. These endangered bats are being helped by an alphabet soup of agencies, plus volunteers from the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, all working together to practically tiptoe up to the cave and rock overhangs to weld in the gates, as quietly as possible.
Two hands and a face appeared at the top of the ladder. Kristin Bobo, the welder, climbed over the top and took a water break to talk with me. For three years, she apprenticed with the inventor of these successful, bat-accepted barriers, a Virginia engineer named Roy Powers, regarded as the nation’s top expert in the field.
In her many years of caving experience, Bobo said ruefully, she has almost never been in a cave, however remote, that did not have evidence of human visitors – usually trash or graffiti. While many explorers are respectful of nature, they may lack understanding of how costly to bats even a brief disturbance can be.
In winter, Ozark Big-eared bats hibernate with only a few ounces of reserve fat to nourish them. They hang upside-down, in clusters. Simply fluttering in alarm burns critical energy, she explained. Using up fat stores may mean starvation before winter ends. In spring and early summer, females use different caves as maternity habitats, usually producing only one “pup” per season, which holds on to its mother’s body before learning to fly. Human intrusion may cause the babies to let go and die on impact with the cave floor, or become separated from their mother and starve. The best plan is to stay out of all caves, crevasses or overhangs, but posting a warning sign does not always deter the curious.
Another critical threat to other bat species is a fungal disease called White Nose Syndrome, a fungus that grows on the bare skin of bats while they’re hibernating. Bats with the syndrome have been observed to behave unnaturally, such as flying out of hibernation caves in winter, in daytime, which is fatal. The syndrome has been observed since about 2006 in the U.S. and has reached some bat species of this region. In Arkansas, little brown bats have almost been entirely wiped out and tricolored bats have seen declines of more than 88 percent since 2010. According to the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, tri-colored, little brown, northern long-eared, big brown, southeastern, small-footed bats, gray, and Indiana bats have been found with WNS symptoms or have died from the disease. Four Arkansas species – eastern red bat, silver-haired bats, Rafinesque’s big-eared bats and the Ozark big-eared bat – have been found with the fungus, but have not been confirmed with White Nose Syndrome. As they may cohabitate with susceptible bats, gating may help protect more than one species.
On public lands, state and national park and land management agencies have closed most known bat habitats, by regulation. The fungus may be spread by being carried in on the feet and clothing of humans. Cave gating is a last resort, but necessary if people do not comply. It is possible that besides the approximately 2,000 individual Ozark Big-Eared Bats that have been documented, there are colonies undiscovered by wildlife authorities and undisturbed by human contact. But without that certainty, preservation of existing bat habitat is imperative. Southwest Missouri was once part of the big-eared bat range; recent research all but concludes that there are no colonies remaining there. As these bats do not migrate, Missouri colonies are deemed to have been “extirpated.” It means “destroyed.”
Back on the four-wheeler, with Baxter ferrying me downhill to my car, I was startled to see Jim Taylor ahead of us on the trail, talking with two hikers. So there was a quick way to walk out – I was getting a courtesy limo ride. I realized that this seemingly remote, wild forest is legitimately accessible as a public recreation area. Bobo had mentioned that a person could easily walk past a bat habitat and never notice it. Now I hope no one ever discovers them. But if you do discover what may be a cave, please keep out! We can share our natural state and enjoy its beauty while respecting the habitat of its precious, wild inhabitants. Their very existence depends on it.
