Rehabilitated bats released in Odesa park for the first time

On April 5, the Bat Rehabilitation Center released bats for the first time in Shevchenko Park in Odesa, with more than 200 people attending the event.

According to Angelika Booth, a specialist of the Center, 27 bats were released in Odesa.

This is the first time such an event has been held in Odesa. Previously, the Center worked only with the zoo, but now it has its own volunteers.

"Yesterday we released them in Poltava and Kyiv. Over a thousand people attended the release in Kyiv and 500 in Poltava. We try to explain about bats, to debunk myths about them. We want children not to be afraid of them," she said.

Some of the bats were sent to Kharkiv because they still need to complete their rehabilitation.

"We want to demonstrate that we should be interested in them, because they are Red Data Book animals. And they suffer greatly from the war. We can somehow cope with ourselves, but the animals cannot," the expert noted.

Bats are a suborder of mammals from the order of lily-like or bats. Bats are a sister group to the suborder of winged bats - fruit-eating bats (a typical representative is the flying fox). In the specialized literature, bats are often referred to as Microchiroptera (as opposed to winged bats - Macrochiroptera). The science that studies bats is chiropterology.

The word "bat" comes from the Old Ukrainian "kazan" - "skin". The name is associated with the fact that the role of wings in a bat is played by wide leather membranes. Although bats are quite widespread, in regions with intensive industrial and agricultural development, the number of their populations is declining dramatically, and many species are now on the verge of extinction.

All known species of bats of the Ukrainian fauna as of 2023 are included in the Red Data Book of Ukraine, for example, the lesser horseshoe bat or the greater noctule. In total, the bat fauna of Ukraine includes 28 species belonging to two families: horseshoe and lily families.

Кирило Бойко