How Do Bats Help?

How do Rodrigues fruit bats help, you ask? They help in many ways. This article will tell you how Rodrigues fruit bats help the environment's ecosystem on Rodrigues Island.

The Rodrigues fruit bat helps by pollinating flowers like bees and they disperse seeds which help more plants grow. In fact, they disperse 60,000 seeds per night.

When the Rodrigues Fruit Bat helps the environment, the forest then gives back by making water systems, amore stable.

How Are They Endangered?

These bats are critically endangered, but how? After the close of World War ll, Rodrigues Island was heavily deforested for farming, eliminating much of the bats natural habitat. By 1979 there were only about 70-100 bats left! Zoos came to the rescue and bred Rodrigues Fruit Bats and re-introduced them back on the island. Today, there are about 20,000 bats, but since they live only on the small island of Rodrigues they are endangered because one catastrophic weather event could severely reduce their numbers.

Where do Rodrigues Fruit Bats live?

You might think bats are scary and all, but they are actually harmless. Simply left alone, bats are harmless and highly beneficial. They are fascinating creatures, vital to the balance of nature around the world. Like most wild animals, bats prefer to avoid contact with humans. They also help grow more trees when they discard the seeds from food they eat, sometimes on their fur or in droppings.