{"id":41297,"date":"2024-08-27T11:58:07","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T09:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b932a283-971d-41a0-b5fe-521a3e4c21c3"},"modified":"2024-08-27T13:27:31","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T11:27:31","slug":"we-found-20-pairs-of-wings-in-an-hour-culprit-of-jamaicas-dismembered-bats-caught-on-camera","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/we-found-20-pairs-of-wings-in-an-hour-culprit-of-jamaicas-dismembered-bats-caught-on-camera\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We found 20 pairs of wings in an hour.\u201d Culprit of Jamaica&#8217;s dismembered bats caught on camera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rssexcerpt\">The predator is a threat to two critically endangered species of bat on the Caribbean island. <\/p><p class=\"rssauthor\">By Richard Pallardy\n      <\/p><p class=\"rssbyline\">Published: Tuesday, 27 August 2024 at 09:58 AM<\/p><hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/><?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\"?>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p><strong>The entrance of St. Clair Cave on the island of Jamaica is littered with bat wings. These appendages are, it seems, the least appetising part of the bat to the perpetrators of the carnage \u2013 feral cats.<\/strong><\/p><p>Located north-west of Kingston in a rural region, the cave is what is known as a megaroost. It is home to an estimated two million bats belonging to ten species and is the only home of the critically endangered Jamaican greater funnel-eared bat (<em>Natalus jamaicensis<\/em>). There are only around 250 left.<\/p><figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls=\"\" poster=\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2024\/08\/Cat-catching-bat-scaled.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2024\/08\/Cat-catching-bat.mp4\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The feral cats stake out the entrance of the cave \u2013 the opportune location for catching the bats. Credit: Bat Conservation International<\/figcaption><\/figure><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/whats-the-biggest-bat\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">What&#8217;s the biggest bat in the world?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/how-do-bats-navigate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">How do bats navigate?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/do-bats-touch-anything-during-flight\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Do bats touch anything during flight?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><p>Reports of cat predation at the site date back to the 1970s. The cats stake out the entrance of the cave at night and capture bats as they leave to forage in a seemingly endless stream that may last several hours. <\/p><p>Camera traps have captured the clever felines snagging bats out of the air and devouring their juicy bodies, leaving only the leathery wings behind. Pregnant females and juveniles are easy prey due to their more ponderous flight.\u00a0<\/p><p>\u201cWithin a one metre by one metre exclusion plot, we found 20 pairs of wings in an hour,\u201d says Jon Flanders, director of endangered species interventions at Bat Conservation International. \u201cHalf the time they&#8217;re just doing it for fun.\u201d\u00a0<\/p><p>He and his colleagues have discovered that bats at the much smaller Stony Hill Cave in Portland, a residential area, are also vulnerable to cats. Stony Hill Cave is home to three species and is the only known roost of the critically endangered Jamaican flower bat (<em>Phyllonycteris aphylla<\/em>).<\/p><figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls=\"\" poster=\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2024\/08\/Cat-with-bat-scaled.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2024\/08\/Cat-with-bat.avi\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The feral cats have been filmed catching bats and eating their bodies. Credit: Damion Whyte<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Cat predation was previously unknown at the site because no wings had been found. Camera traps showed why \u2013 as cats devoured bats and left their wings behind, non-native mongooses (<em>Urva auropunctata<\/em>) followed them and quickly scavenged the remains.<\/p><p>\u201cIn 28 nights, I watched 87 bats being eaten by cats,\u201d Flanders recalls. Some of them were Jamaican flower bats \u2013 whose population consists of only a couple of thousand individuals at most.<\/p><blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u201cIn 28 nights, I watched 87 bats being eaten by cats.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote><p>Damion Whyte, \u00a0a biologist and PhD student at the Department of Life Sciences at the University of the West Indies Mona in Jamaica has also captured images of cats eating bats at the Green Grotto Caves (previously known as Runaway Bay Caves) on the north side of the island, near Discovery Bay, suggesting that cats may be a more widespread problem for cave dwelling bats on the island.<\/p><figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls=\"\" poster=\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2024\/08\/Feral-cat-catching-bat-scaled.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2024\/08\/Feral-cat-in-Jamaica.avi\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The cats target pregnant females and juveniles, which are easy to catch due to their more ponderous flight: Credit: Damion Whyte<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Jamaica is home to 21 species of bat and 15 of these species are dependent on around 17% of the island\u2019s 950 documented caves. Five species are endemic to the island. Cave ecosystems are highly vulnerable to human disturbance, including the harvest of guano for fertiliser\u2014and they can quickly collapse if disrupted. Even seemingly minor factors may in fact have huge impacts on bat ecology. Fewer than ten cats have been observed at each site\u2014yet they take hundreds of bats each year.<\/p><p>Feral cats have been documented as bat predators in many regions of the world, with documented impacts in the United Kingdom, United States, Argentina, Australia, Spain and\u00a0Italy, among other countries.<\/p><p>Flanders and his colleagues are working on installing predator exclusion fences at both St. Clair Cave and Stony Hill Cave. These structures feature an outward-facing lip that allows cats and other mammals to escape but prevents them from re-entering. They hope to have the fences in place by this fall, thus shielding some of Jamaica\u2019s most vulnerable mammals from one of our most damaging commensal species.<\/p><p><em>Main image: feral cat with a bat in its mouth. Credit: Bat Conservation International<\/em><\/p><p><strong>More wildlife stories from around the world<\/strong><\/p><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/dinosaurs\/alpkarakush-kyrgyzicus-kyrgyzstan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Epic dinosaur skull dug up in Kyrgyzstan desert has got scientists excited<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/birds\/new-zealand-flightless-birds-retreating-to-moa-graveyards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">New Zealand\u2019s endangered flightless birds are retreating to &#8216;moa graveyards&#8217;<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/big-cat-british-countryside\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">DNA confirms there IS a big cat roaming the British countryside<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/photographing-the-pallas-cat-in-the-himalayas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">When India&#8217;s grumpiest cat moved into a house in the Himalayas, the family who lived there moved out<\/a><\/li><\/ul> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The predator is a threat to two critically endangered species of bat on the Caribbean island. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":41298,"template":"","categories":[1,241],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/we-found-20-pairs-of-wings-in-an-hour-culprit-of-jamaicas-dismembered-bats-caught-on-camera.jpg",1650,1100,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/we-found-20-pairs-of-wings-in-an-hour-culprit-of-jamaicas-dismembered-bats-caught-on-camera-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/we-found-20-pairs-of-wings-in-an-hour-culprit-of-jamaicas-dismembered-bats-caught-on-camera-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/we-found-20-pairs-of-wings-in-an-hour-culprit-of-jamaicas-dismembered-bats-caught-on-camera-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/we-found-20-pairs-of-wings-in-an-hour-culprit-of-jamaicas-dismembered-bats-caught-on-camera-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/we-found-20-pairs-of-wings-in-an-hour-culprit-of-jamaicas-dismembered-bats-caught-on-camera-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/08\/we-found-20-pairs-of-wings-in-an-hour-culprit-of-jamaicas-dismembered-bats-caught-on-camera.jpg",1650,1100,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The predator is a threat to two critically endangered species of bat on the Caribbean island.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/41297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}