{"id":8944,"date":"2024-01-30T15:12:07","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T07:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=8944"},"modified":"2024-01-30T15:13:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T07:13:09","slug":"philippines-as-the-country-with-the-worlds-largest-bats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/philippines-as-the-country-with-the-worlds-largest-bats\/","title":{"rendered":"Philippines as the country with the world\u2019s largest bats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By <\/strong>Gregg Yan<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you know that the largest bat of all is found only in the Philippines?\u00a0Planet Earth has 1400 known bat species and the Golden-crowned\u00a0Flying Fox (<\/strong>Acerodon jubatus<\/strong><\/em>) earns the top spot for size and weight. Known locally as<\/strong>\u00a0kabog<\/strong><\/em>, it is endemic or found nowhere else but in the Philippines.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strikingly patterned with a golden cap, reddish fur and chocolate-brown wings, adults weigh over a kilogram and can boast of a wingspan nearly two meters across \u2013 longer than most people are tall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Philippines has 79 recorded bat species, half of them endemic,\u201d explains\u00a0Dr. Mariano Roy Duya\u00a0of the University of the Philippines Institute of Biology (UPIB). North America, with a land area that is 66 times larger \u2013 has but 45. We have an incredible diversity of bats since each of our 7100 islands is geographically unique. And of course, we have the largest bat of all.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once widespread throughout undisturbed lowland forests across the country, hunting and deforestation \u2013 particularly from slash-and-burn upland farming or\u00a0kaingin<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 have whittled down bat populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dumaguete-based filmmaker Rhiyad Maturan and I were recently invited by the Energy Development Corporation (EDC) to\u00a0film<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0a thriving\u00a0kabog<\/em>\u00a0colony inside the Bacon-Manito Geothermal Project, a heavily forested geothermal reservation nestled between the provinces of Albay and Sorsogon on the island of Luzon. Though the area is now verdant and alive, it wasn\u2019t always so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBelieve it or not, that entire mountain range was once logged-over,\u201d says\u00a0Ed Jimenez<\/strong>, corporate relations head for EDC\u2019s Bacon-Manito Geothermal Project, pointing at well-forested hills nearby. \u201cThe only trees left were the ones loggers ignored. To bring the mountains back to life, we worked with the local communities to help reforest this area while providing them with an alternative source of income. Decades later, the organizations we helped form, like the Alliance of Bacman Farmer\u2019s Association Inc. Agriculture Cooperative (formerly ALBAFAI) and the Bacman Host Community Multi-purpose Cooperative (BMPC), have become some of our most passionate champions. Even the grandchildren of the original members are helping us plant trees, promote community-based conservation and protect these forests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from bats, Bicol\u2019s forests also shelter wild deer, pigs, monkeys and birds \u2013 most of which were driven to remote areas by decades of hunting and forest loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI learned to shoot\u00a0kabog<\/em>\u00a0with an airgun when I was still a kid,\u201d recalls\u00a0Joseph \u2018Doy\u2019 Gabion, a former bat hunter. \u201cBats are easy to hunt by day because they hang upside down from their roosts. When the roosts were eventually protected by EDC and its conservation partners, we hunters had to wait until the bats flew out to their feeding grounds. Back in the 1990s, my uncle and I would wait for them to pass to be able to catch two or three bats a night.\u00a0Kabog<\/em>\u00a0meat has a slightly woody taste.\u201d Doy has since stopped hunting and now volunteers with the Armed Forces of the Philippines\u2019 CAFGU Active Auxiliary Unit II to help protect the very animals he once hunted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0kabog<\/em>\u00a0colony moves from one area to another within the Bacman reservation and we chanced\u00a0upon them roosting on a grove of pine-like Agoho (Casuarina<\/em>\u00a0spp.) trees. \u201cWe have about 700\u00a0kabog<\/em>\u00a0individuals here now, our flagship fauna species for this site,\u201d explains Forester\u00a0Neil Miras, EDC Bacman\u2019s watershed management officer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Representing iconic wildlife found in its geothermal, solar and wind sites, EDC\u2019s Flagship Species Initiative (FSI) aims to popularize some of the nation\u2019s lesser-known forest denizens. The eight other flagship species include the Philippine Warty Pig (Sus philippensis<\/em>),\u00a0<\/em>Visayan Hornbill (Penelopides panini<\/em>),\u00a0<\/em>Apo Myna (Goodfellowia miranda<\/em>), plus native trees like Mapilig (Xanthostemon bracteatus<\/em>), Katmon Bayani (Dillenia megalantha<\/em>), Red Lauan (Shorea negrosensis<\/em>),Almaciga\u00a0(Agathis philippinensis<\/em>)andIgem-dagat\u00a0(Podocarpus costalis<\/em>).\u00a0EDC has been planting native trees across the country since the 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThough millions\u00a0of trees have been planted under the\u00a0BINHI Program<\/a>, we should still recognize the importance and effectiveness of natural seed dispersion \u2013 either by the wind, water or by local wildlife,\u201d explainsForester\u00a0Abegail Gatdula, EDC-FSI project manager. \u201cFlying animals like birds and bats eat the fruits of various forest trees and disperse them far and wide within life-giving guano bombs, giving the seeds a vital headstart.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though not as popular as the Tamaraw or Philippine Eagle, the\u00a0kabog<\/em>\u00a0has been quietly doing its part to make the Philippines greener. \u201cThink of them as the \u2018silent seed planters\u2019 of nature. We never pay them but they keep working for our world,\u201d concludes\u00a0Jean Dayap, Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Officer (MENRO) of Manito in Albay.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So tonight, please look up at the night sky to thank our uncelebrated wildlife heroes, quietly working the night shift to make the Philippines a little greener \u2013 one guano bomb at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch our Golden-crowned Flying Fox documentary\u00a0HERE<\/strong><\/a>.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Philippines has 79 recorded bat species, half of them endemic,\u201d explains Dr. Mariano Roy Duya of the University of the Philippines Institute of Biology (UPIB). North America, with a land area that is 66 times larger \u2013 has but 45. We have an incredible diversity of bats since each of our 7100 islands is geographically unique. And of course, we have the largest bat of all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1227,2060,1820,145,905],"class_list":["post-8944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-adventure-travel","tag-eco-travel","tag-family-travel","tag-green-travel","tag-luxury-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8948,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8944\/revisions\/8948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}