Biology student warns against touching bats

Bats are more related to killer whales than they are mice or rats. After all, killer whales and bats are both mammals.

Times-Herald photo

Shelby Bohn, left, and Kandra Forbes, a park interpreter at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park pose following an informative session about bats on Friday evening.

This is one of the nuggets of information about bats that a group of about 20 Buffalo Pound Provincial Park attendees discovered at a bat hunt Friday evening.

Unfortunately, the wet and windy weather didnt allow the group to go out in search of big brown bats and little brown bats, which are sometimes found at Buffalo Pound.

Nonetheless, the interested spectators mostly children were fascinated by all of the knowledge Shelby Bohn, a University of Regina MSc. biology student studying bats, told them about the only flying mammal.

Bohn says she is often asked if bats like to fly into peoples hair. According to her, that is a myth.

If they do, its a complete accident, she said. Theyre not attracted to your hair at all.

Another myth Bohn dispelled was that bats arent blind, as many people believe them to be.

They actually have really good eyesight, but where those myths originate is because they use echo location, said Bohn. They do have eyesight, but its just more effective to use echo location at night.

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Biology student warns against touching bats