St. Martin Parish 4-H’er Andre Goodyear marks where a panel will go on a bat box while other 4- H’ers observe how the assembly is done. (Photo by Mark Claesgens. Click on photo to download larger image.)

Camp Grant Walker maintenance crew Bruce Davis (left) and Chris Givens, along with St. Martin Parish 4-H agent Margaret Frey, adjust the placement of a completed bat box. (Photo by Mark Claesgens. Click on photo to download larger image.)

Secured to a pole about 12 feet off the ground, the bat box is ready for occupancy. It has two entryways – one at the bottom and a narrow slit a few inches higher up. The three black wire mesh strips that run up the back of the box are what the bats will cling to upside down when they rest. (Photo by Mark Claesgens. Click on photo to download larger image.)

POLLOCK – Hundreds of permanent, long-time residents of the LSU AgCenter’s Grant Walker 4‑H Educational Center are being treated to brand new housing, thanks to the efforts of 4‑H’ers.

The residents are bats, and the new housing is bat boxes. 4-H’ers built the boxes as a project for Youth Wetlands Week, March 31-April 4.

Bats are critical to the camp’s natural and human environment, according to Margaret Frey, LSU AgCenter agent in St. Martin Parish. They help keep the mosquito population under control, the natural resources expert said. One bat can eat from 500 to 1,000 mosquitoes per hour.

Because the bats’ favorite insect thrives in the camp’s creeks, woods and marshy areas, bat study and box construction became a natural project for wetland awareness.

The connection might be lost on the bats, however. The problem is the flying mammals rather like their current residence – a large, covered, open-air pavilion. And what bat wouldn’t? It has all the desired amenities – protection from the elements (while still part of nature), safe nesting places and easy access to food and water.

Unfortunately, campers find the pavilion desirable for many of the same reasons. But they’re not fond of walking through or around the bats’ nightly droppings known as guano. Nor do they find the urea scent particularly pleasant.

To help lure the bats to their new dwellings, Frey will plant the kinds of flowers the bats like to feed on along with some inviting scents at the base of the boxes.

“At this point, we hope for success, but we just don’t know. The bats really like where they’re living now,” Frey said. She expects that some kind of barrier will have to be put on the pavilion to further direct the bats towards their alternative housing.

The 4-H’ers assembled the bat houses from kits made and donated by Wayne Gilmore, a 4-H woodworking leader in Opelousas. Gilmore prepared the kits following instructions from Bat Conservational International and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Frey made a permanent record of the wetlands project with an engraved plaque recognizing Gilmore in particular and the 4-H participants in general.

4‑H is the youth development program of the U.S. land-grant university system. It is operated throughout Louisiana by the LSU AgCenter.

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Contact: Margaret Frey (337) 332-2181 or mfrey@agcenter.lsu.edu Writer: Mark Claesgens (225) 578-2939 or mclaesgens@agcenter.lsu.edu