Thank the things that go bump in the night
Experts highlight nocturnal animals’ ecological benefits
After humans call it a day, nocturnal animals — furry or winged — come out to play. And we should thank them.
In Texas, night stalkers like bats, owls and raccoons prowl the urban landscape. If they didn’t, wildlife experts say, the ecosystem would suffer, thrown out of balance as common prey like rats, mice and mosquitoes thrived.
“A lot of our animals in our urban areas are actually nocturnal and not everybody realizes how many there are,” said Maureen Frank, assistant professor and wildlife specialist at Texas A&M Agrilife Extension in Uvalde. “Sometimes we think of wildlife being out there, outside the city, but a lot of species have adapted to the urban environment and they live right along with us.”
Ten of the largest bat colonies in the world are in Texas. Migratory free-tailed bats — which are the most common kind in Texas — can be viewed nightly at the Waugh Drive Bridge along Allen Parkway. State wildlife officials estimate 250,000 of the freetailed bats live at the Houston bridge.
“The bat flights are amazing, winding along the bayou or through the skyscrapers across downtown,” the Texas Parks & Wildlife website boasts in its Bat-Watching Sites of Texas page.
Bats are vital to pest control across Texas, which is home to 32 of the 47 species in the United States, according to Parks & Wildlife. Because there are so many bat mouths to feed, it’s estimated the winged diners save the agricultural industry billions of dollars in pest- management costs.
In Texas, each species of bat eats a variety of insects. A couple of species at the Mexican border also eat agave nectar and help pollinate agave plants throughout South Texas. And bats have a sweet tooth for mosquitoes. While that bug accounts for less of a bat’s diet than others, like moths, it’s enough to help manage the pest’s numbers.
Raccoons, opossums and skunks also pig out on insects after the sun goes down, Frank said. Opossums, in particular, go above and beyond. With fluffy tails that pick up ticks during trots through the forest, opossums can polish off about 5,000 of the bugs per week. That’s 5,000 fewer potential carriers of diseases that harm humans.
Many of these predators aren’t strictly nocturnal, but mostly they prefer the nighttime, when fewer two-legged threats are around to cramp their style.
“A lot of these guys are afraid of humans,” Frank said. “But also prey, such as rats and mice, are out and about at night so they know to stay up and catch them.”
An adult barn owl can eat about 10 rodents in a night during brooding season, which runs from late spring into early summer. An entire nest of barn owls could eat thousands in a season, keeping the rodent populations low in cities. At night, there is less competition for the owls since other birds of prey hunt during the day, and they can see well at night.
To keep these nocturnal animals around, however, residents must keep temptations like food and garbage inaccessible to prevent them from scrounging around. If they get too comfortable with people, there is a greater chance of conflict between them and us, Frank said.
But “it doesn’t have to be zero wildlife, zero animals,” Frank said.
“Your neighborhood can really be part of that nightly ecosystem, which in turn benefits us,” she said. “They’re really just our wild neighbors.”