How much is a bat worth? Protecting these tiny insect‑eaters isn’t just good for farms – their deaths cost taxpayers and the wider economy
A healthy bat hangs in a cave, resting up to eat its weight in bugs at dusk. Liz Hamrick/TVA
Dale Manning, University of Tennessee; Anya Nakhmurina, Yale University, and Eli Fenichel, Yale University
Most Americans tend to think about bats only around Halloween, but the U.S. economy benefits from these furry flying mammals every day.
Bats pollinate plants, including many important food crops, when they stop by flowers to drink nectar. Their guano is mined from caves for fertilizer. And they eat a lot of bugs – the kinds that bother people (think mosquitoes) and others that destroy crops that humans depend on for food.
