Bats aren't bad: this scientist is on a mission to rehab bats' public image

Bats have a bad reputation — and it only got worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

But while bats are known for carrying viruses that cause diseases like rabies and Ebola, they also play a vital role in ecosystems around the world. Rodrigo Medellín, a bat expert who has been fascinated with the animals for 50 years, wants to remind the public of this fact and rehabilitate the animal's public image. 

It's a mission that's taken him to Mexico's agave fields, where solving a farming issue could help support his conservation efforts.

Bats to the rescue!

Tequila and mezcal — two of Mexico's most famous exports — are made from the agave plant, a variety of succulent with leaves that can grow to a length of two-and-a-half metres or more. And on most agave farms, the plants are clones. 

Mature agaves send out roots that develop into smaller plants, and farmers will replant these genetic copies in new fields. But identical plants are also identically vulnerable, meaning a single disease threatens to wipe out an entire crop.

This is where the bats come in. 

The nocturnal mammals are the main pollinators of agave plants. With a tongue that can extend nearly as long as their bodies, bats lap up the sweet nectar of the agave blooms. Meanwhile, the pollen on their faces — from wild agaves they've fed on earlier that night — pollinates the flowers. This allows the plants to produce genetically diverse seeds.

Tequila and mezcal producers generally don't let their cloned plants flower, since it drains the plant of the sugars needed to make the product. But letting a few agaves blossom can attract bats to feed in their fields, helping them introduce the much needed genetic diversity of wild agave to their crop.

In this clip from "Open Spaces" — the second episode of Shared Planet, a series from The Nature of Things — Medellín visits Don Emigdio Jarquín Ramirez's agave farm. He's there to see if bats are bringing the wild agave pollen to Jarquín Ramirez's fields and provide education about the importance of bats. 

"We thought that bees were the ones that pollinated the flower," Jarquín Ramirez says in Spanish. "But these guys say no, that it's the bat."

Medellín is hoping to change the relationship the agave farmers have with wild bats. He gently removes a small bat from a net placed in Jarquín Ramirez's field and shows it off to the farmer and his family members.  

Medellín says he's been able to turn bat haters into bat defenders in just 10 or 15 minutes. And with this one little pollinator, he seems to have done just that. 

"When he showed us, I thought that they are very, very beautiful," says Jarquín Ramirez.

Medellín's efforts have the potential to pay off from both a commercial and ecological standpoint. With bats in the picture, Jarquín Ramirez's crop will be more resilient, and his mezcal can be sold with a "bat-friendly" label on the bottle — a boost for Medellín's PR campaign. 

Watch the video above for the full story.

Watch Shared Planet: Open Spaces on CBC Television, CBC Gem and on The Nature of Things YouTube channel