Bat ambassadors pay visit for home-schoolers

Tuscora Park in New Philadelphia will present an educational event for the city’s home-schooled students on Feb. 9. Nancy Owen of Gryphon Den Night Creatures will bring a small group of live bats to help students gain a greater understanding of these nocturnal animals as part of Owen’s Creatures of the Night nonprofit educational program.

Marsha Freeland, TuscParks education manager, said she was pleased to find Owen available to do the presentation. “We have worked with her several times and were very pleased to have her come speak to the students again,” she said.

The event is open to any home-schooled child in New Philadelphia, but the 70 available spots are filling up fast, Freeland said. Parents of home-schooled students can call the parks office at 330-365-3279 to be made aware of future events. Attendees should be aware rescheduling may become necessary in the event of severe weather. The session will be held at Tuscora Park Youth Center.

Gryphon Den Night Creatures is home to both Owen’s passion for animal rehabilitation and the furred and feathered benefactors of that passion, something she has pursued since childhood.

“I have always been an animal person,” Owen said. “When I was a small child, I would rescue animals no one cared much about, like snakes and salamanders and all kinds of small creatures. As I got older, I became more fascinated by the animals I took in.”

After marrying her husband, a veterinarian, in 1992, the hobby became an endeavor on the couple’s farm in Carroll County. “We’ve been doing it ever since,” she said. “We look after small mammals and raptors now, mostly owls.”

Owen is a federally licensed wildlife educator.

Owen will bring four educational bats to the park. “They were bats we took in and cared for but we are unable to release into the wild,” Owen said. “Bats have a bad reputation that is undeserved. They are an absolute necessity to our environment.”

Owen said bats, which eat 7,000-9,000 insects on any given night of feeding, are beneficial both to the balance of nature and human interests.

“They eat a lot of moths, which reduces the number of moth eggs, which in turn become caterpillars, which feed on farm crops,” Owen said. “It is estimated that in Ohio, farmers save some $23 million annually just from the nightly work of bats. I am no fan of insecticides, so this is a big benefit for all of us.”

Owen said bats typically eat a lot of mosquitoes as well, representing about 10% of the animal’s diet. Mosquitoes are considered one of the world’s most dangerous species, spreading illness to humans through bites each year.

Owen said students are always thrilled to see the bats when she comes to make a presentation.

“They aren’t afraid of them, though the adults usually are. The bats don’t even weigh an ounce and are wonderful animals. Their wings are constructed just like our own hands. When they capture insects at night, they don’t eat them out of the air but use their tails and wings to trap them before they eat them,” Owen said.

Owen is hoping to give students an appreciation for bats as a close and natural beneficiary to human life and well-being. “I want them to understand more about their physical traits and their importance to the ecosystem,” she said. “They’re very interesting, and when you are around them as much as we are, you begin to recognize individual personalities, their likes and dislikes. I find it all fascinating.”

Owen is available for presentations to any kind of interested group. She can be emailed at gaia5230@gmail.com.

Learn more about educational offerings through New Philadelphia Parks by calling Freeland at 330-365-3279.