Not at all batty

BATS will be encouraged to nest around the San Juan de los Terreros salt beds to prey on mosquitoes there.

The Isla de Terreros association, with cooperation from the Association of South-eastern Naturalists (ANSE) and the town hall, organised a workshop which demonstrated how to construct the wooden nesting boxes that were later put in place.

The aim was to control plagues of mosquitoes without resorting to insecticides, an ANSE spokesperson announced.

“Bats take their time to occupy the nests, but they will eventually,” explained environmental expert Maria Angeles Garcia de Alcaraz.

Droppings below the boxes will indicate if they are being used, together with endoscopic cameras placed inside them, she added.

“We won’t see short-term results but inspections will be made each year and every nesting box is to be geo-referenced and numbered,” Garcia de Alcaraz said.

“It will be a question of ‘wait and see’ and introducing measures as we go along.”