“Some people have a phobia of all kinds of animals. First and foremost, bats are not rodents. They are flying mammals, the only ones on earth that do. They are very diverse and fill a bunch of bestial roles in our area. They eat insects in the temperate zone, and without them our agriculture would suffer. Basically, an animal of 4-5 grams eats one kg of insects a year. That means around 1500 euros in ecosystem services to give too many insecticides in the respective areas. So a single bat saves the state 1,500 euros a year. There are some species that mainly eat mosquitoes, for example,” said Dragoş Măntoiu at DC Anima.
In the US, bats eradicated malaria
“A lot of people call us and ask us how we can bring some bats to their area. It’s difficult. These animals have a specific ecology. They choose their place, and once chosen they can stay there for generations, decades. It’s difficult to bring them to a place and make them do what you want. But in the USA they have built some very large colonies of bats. And they have eradicated malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes.” the biologist also said.
Who is Dragoş Mântoiu?
Dragoş Măntoiu is a geographer, who also deals with spatial ecology and environmental modeling.
He is a PhD student at the Emil Racoviţă Institute of Speleology in Bucharest, where he focuses in particular on bat migration and ecology, using a spatial approach. He also works as an environmental consultant for the EPC Environmental Consultancy company.
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