Bats in my belfry
Rob Price

"How are the bats?" I said the other day.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone line. My mother, calling from our family's log cabin in northern Ontario, was gathering her thoughts. At last she spoke:

"They're everywhere," she wailed.

The report was grim. The native bats, with whom we have always shared the cabin, had multiplied vigorously over the past year. By day, they were chirping inside the log walls; by night, they were flitting around the living room and kitchen; depositing bat guano on the floors and counters.

"I can smell them," my mother said.

Our cabin is about 80 years old and constructed of upright cedar logs. Along with being an ideal vacation retreat, it's a great roosting place for native creatures. Over the past 30 years, I've even gotten used to the odd bat flying around the living room or bedroom late at night. Usually, would catch them in a towel and toss them outside.

I believed in a particular ecological principal: The bats were the more natural residents of the cabin. They certainly spent more time there than my family. And my wife and I even found them attractive - at a distance, flitting around the sky in the evening twilight.

That began changing two years ago, when the odd bat in the cabin started becoming a regular occurrence. Some evenings, two or three would fly around the living room before disappearing into the spaces between the logs.

The word "infestation" began occurring to me. And now, the word that is occurring to me - and especially to my mother - is "uninhabitable."

I suppose there is a kind of odd calculus at work here: Woodland creatures are tolerable and even desirable in certain numbers or proportions. But those numbers can change, and suddenly what was once attractive has become a pest. Not only a pest: a possible health hazard.

"I advise you to buy a highpowered BB gun," I said to my mother. "And I'm bringing my tennis racket."

I added I'm prepared to roll a lawn mower into the cabin and flood the place with carbon monoxide. I am also wondering what effect Led Zeppelin played at high decibels might have. In other words, I - who have always endeavored to live alongside the native bat population- am ready to declare war.

I know what many of you will say: The bats were there first. What right do I have to impose my unilateral needs on a native population?

And what about the secondary effect on the insect population? Kill a lot of bats, and won't the bugs become a problem?

All I can say is, I am ready to explore that new calculus. But I am also disappointed to have reached this point. The outdoors of northern Ontario are lovely, and in order to enjoy them our family built a log cabin in their midst many years ago.

Now, it would seem, that incursion has created some unintended consequences. And, once a guest of the woods, we are contemplating an occupation.

This column appeared in a 2007 issue of The Courier.