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Article: Bats are beautiful // At long last conservationists are going to bat for the `evil' bat
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- October 14, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright (null) Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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It was the spookiest experience of his filmmaking career.
Jack Schmidling took his camera from Chicago to a cave near San
Antonio, Texas, where 20 million bats live. Each square foot of the
Bracken Cave ceiling is covered with as many as 300 bats.
The body heat from all these bats raises the cave temperature to
105 degrees. And the thick layer of bat droppings produces such
poisonous ammonia fumes that you need a gas mask to go inside.
Mr. Schmidling filmed the cave at dusk, just as the bats were
waking up from a deep sleep. They swarmed out of the cave in a
continuous dark stream that reminded him of a tornado.
"It felt like a visit to another planet," Mr. Schmidling said.
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