Ron and all,

Now I can say I've heard of someone being bitten by a bat that didn't try to
handle it (but inadvertently did so). I still feel a need to respond as I
believe this could promote more irrational fear of bats and wildlife in
general. I don't consider it irrational to believe that it's possible that
a bat could harm a human, only irrational that it's reasonably likely that
one would harm you or your family if you put up a bat house and bats
occupied it. Though most dogs get rabies shots, I expect dogs are still
more likely to give a human rabies than a bat. It also seems probable that
bats eating mosquitoes that carry diseases are more likely to prevent a
human illness than they are themselves to give a human a disease. Wildlife
in general (and those of us who love wildlife) have suffered enormously from
irrational degrees of human fear of wildlife.

As for the possibility of someone commercially supplying damselfly eggs or
nymphs, I think it's a bad idea, unless possibly someone with very high
standards of ecological concern and knowledge bred a local species from the
appropriate habitat from local gene stock to release in the same area and
habitat. There are too many stories of organisms being brought in for
biological control upsetting the ecosystems they are released in, or harming
specific native species within that ecosystem. There are probably many
stories yet to be told of organisms "tested" to harm only a certain
non-native host or prey target species, that will adapt to eating,
infecting, parasitizing or otherwise harming native non-target species.

Stewart Wechsler
West Seattle
mailto:ecostewart at quidnunc.net

I've never heard of a bat, other than vampire bats in South America, biting
> a person that didn't try to handle them. I imagine that if you handled a
> baby bat you could get bit by the mother too.
>
Stewart,

One of the people I saw was a youngster who felt something land on him. He
had his hand raised at the time and the bat landed on his chest under his
arm. He brought his arm down and inadvertently trapped the bat.

I don't recall the details of the other bite. But, it was in an adult.

As far as damselfly larvae. The only way I know that would make a big
difference would be if you could find a commercial supplier of large numbers
of them. I'm talking about hundreds of ponds here.

My other big nature interest is in coleoptera, so I'm not against using
bugs. :')

Thanks,
Ron McCluskey
Cheney, WA

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