Man's Best Friend, the Bat
Friday, August 31, 2007

A suburb of Tel Aviv has put away its insecticide sprays and plug-ins in favor of insectivorous bats

Tel Aviv University, in partnership with the Ministry of the Environment and the city of Ramat Gan, is relocating mosquito-eating bats to work as pest exterminators.

The bats, which can eat up to 600 mosquitoes a night each, have been encouraged to nest in the area of Ramat Gan and will be observed by researchers over a period of several years.  The bats provide a natural way of controlling growing pest populations, often casued by human interference in the ecosystem.  In the past, mosquitoes have been associated with the transmission of diseases like malaria and the West Nile Virus in Israel.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/like_a_bat_outt.php