Jharkhand creates island sanctuary to protect giant fruit bats

The sprawling city of Jamshedpur, home to steel and other heavy industries in Jharkhand state, turns into a vampires\’ playground soon after sunset.

An army of 700 giant fruit-eating bats takes over the city\’s sky as they brush past the occasional evening walker on the lonely tree-lined avenues in the city. They troop out of their island habitat located in the middle of the Jayanti Sarovar, a bustling migratory bird habitat in the heart of the city, to forage for food.

The little-known Jayanti Sarovar Bat Sanctuary - the state\’s lone urban reserve of flying foxes or giant fruit bats - is spread across 0.69 hectare of a deeply wooded isle in the Tata Steel Zoological Park.

The flying fox population here has logged a sharp rise from 500 in 2008 to 700 in 2009, according to a census carried out by the zoo authorities and local researchers in November.

Apart from the flying foxes, known as the largest bat species in the world, the sanctuary also boasts of the sphinx - another species of giant bats, natives of the tropics and the sub-tropics.

Scientifically, the huge bats are known as Pteropus giganteus.

According to the UK-based Bat Conservation Trust and Ptrecount- South Asian Bat Monitoring Programme, partially funded by the Indian environment ministry, there are more than 1,100 species of bats across the world accounting for one-fifth of the global mammal species and 25 percent of the mammalian diversity in South Asia.

While the large fruit bats live in tropical South Asia, their small carnivorous counterparts live in Europe and the US.

\”In 2006-2007, a researcher, professor K.K. Sharma, who heads the department of zoology of the Jamshedpur Cooperative College, carried out a survey with a group of students and found that the number of giant fruit bats had shrunk in the city and in the neighbouring Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary, barely 10 km from the city. They were once found in abundance in and around the city and across the East Singhbhum district,\” Tata Steel Zoological Park director Bipul Chakrabarty told IANS.

\”Sharma found that a colony of 500 bats had localized themselves on the island in the middle of Jayanti Sarovar, which fell under the purview of the Tata Steel Zoological Park. He requested the park to protect them, create safe roosting sites and a stable food chain. The Tata Steel Zoological Society declared the island a bat sanctuary in 2008,\” Chakrabarty said.

The island, an overgrown forest, has several fruit-bearing trees of the ficus family like figs - a staple diet of the giant fruit bats. The dense greenery of the park, home to fruit-bearing trees like papayas and mangoes, also ensure ample food for the bats. Even during the day, colonies of bats are found hanging from the branches of the trees.

The fact that the habitat is an island helps. Bats are naturally attracted to water after their long nocturnal flights. After returning to their nests early in the morning, clusters of them swoop down into the lake for sips of water, Chakrabarty said.

The zoo authorities and local environmentalists led by Sharma protect the bats by \”giving them seclusion, removing them from human contact and filling the island with more greenery\”.

\”Bats are very choosy about habitats. They prefer trees of the ficus varieties- like large fig and banyan trees - to roost and for easy access to water. Moreover, the adivasis (tribals) of Jharkhand hunt flying foxes for their meat which is believed to cure respiratory diseases,\” Sharma told IANS.

The giant flying foxes or the \”megachiropterans (megabats)\” and sphinx (medium-size bats) found in the sanctuary weigh between 1 and 1.5 kg with an average wing-span of 1 to 2 metres, Sharma said.

The zoo authorities and local researchers are drawing up the final blueprint for a mega bat conservation project. \”We will submit the project to the ministry of environment this month,\” zoo director Chakrabarty said.

The project - a collaboration between the Tata Steel Zoological Park and Sharma - will study the \”behavioural aspects of large bats, factors for their decline in the state, breeding habits, scope for captive breeding, seasonal migration and colonies elsewhere in the region\”, Sharma said.

\”We would like to create sacred groves for the bats across the state because the topography and bio-diversity of Jharkhand encourage the growth of bats. The flying mammals are very important for preservation of the natural food chain because they help germinate at least 50 varieties of fruits,\” the professor said.

Bats drop digested fruit seeds as faecal matter on the ground while flying and these seeds germinate only after passing through the guts of the big fruit bats. Bats also carry pollen across the forests. The Jharkhand government, said the professor, wanted to regenerate the forests of the state by creating more mega bat habitats.

Bats, say experts, can be as large as dogs or can be as small as bumblebees.

As the population of bats dips, the campaign to conserve one of the most intriguing species of mammals - subject of several vampire myths - is gaining momentum in India and South Asia. The South Asian Bat Monitoring Programme is one of them. It aims to create awareness about bat conservation issues by educating biologists and nature lovers about the biology of bats. The focus of the organization in India is the flying fox or the fruit bats - which is common to the country. The programme enlists freelance volunteers to conduct bat surveys and collect data.

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) places \”Asian megabats\” on its list of \”least concern\” species because of their widespread presence in South Asia. But it says that their \”population trend is