The Secret Lives of Bats: My Adventures with the World's Most Misunderstood Mammals
By: Merlin Tuttle / Narrated By: Sean Runnette
Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
Oh gosh, went into this with loooow expectations but hopeful…? Finished oh soooo enchanted!!!
Seriously, whilst doing Audiobook Accomplice, always (Well, USUALLY) doing an Animals Pick every week, I sometimes feel like I’m Grasping For Straws, culling a variety of options, p’raps dithering in an almighty fashion over what to choose, what to choose.
I was reeeeally Grasping For That Straw when I chose The Secret Lives of Bats cuz, while I do indeed respect (Like crazy!) EVERY Creature’s right to live, I gotta admit that bats are kinda sorta not my thing.
Eeeeven tho’ I’ve been to Austin TX’s Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk (M’ husband and I were caught up in a crowd of hundreds in the mid-90s) and I found myself quite simply AWED by the sight of a gazillion (And six) bats taking flight. Over…WHELming… SUCH a dazzling sight!
Still, they’re kinda ODD? looking? -BUT- This audiobook was On Sale over on Chirpbooks, and I gave it a try.
Immediately, I was enchanted. And imagine my surprise when I began the listen, and it opens with tabloid headlines from Austin about a Bat Invasion of Bloodthirsty Vampiric Creatures, a freaked-out populace demanding their extermination when hordes of these little guys took up residence in September of 1984.
Enter author of note (And THE savior of all Bat-Kind!), Merlin Tuttle, as he himself uproots his BCI (Bat Conservation International) and hotfoots it down to Austin. He sees a chance, the challenge he savors, to educate all and sundry about the gentle creatures, charming socialites and politicians alike, trotting out critters as adorable as kittens to a shindig thrown by then Governor of Texas (THE AWESOME!) Ann Richards. Where once the magazine “Texas Monthly” awarded him their Bum Steer Award for desperately misguided actions, soon they’re lauding him for his valiant efforts, the positive effect he’s had on the Austin community (And dude! really! There’s an Austin Ice Bats Hockey Club! ANYtime a sports team dons a name? BIG Time!).
Tuttle had always been nutsy about the environment and other species, and good thing his family was supportive cuz by the time he truly discovered the wonder of bats when he was but 17-years old, he was well and truly done-for. It sparked a lifelong journey to learn All Things Bats, and this audiobook is less a scholarly treatise (Tho it does have a feeeeew statistics) and more a flat-out tale of Adventure and Derring-Do!
Early on he and (He’s quick to point out:) FORMER wife undertake expeditions galore, all over the place, using the newest technology to track and gather information about bats of all ilks. Storms! Lightning! Moonshiners using caves for their stills (And are those shotguns?!)! Nudist populations (Delighted to assist, but gosh they reeeeally prefer their assistants to wear clothes!)!
They band bats with reflective (Red for females, blue for males) bands, they use a quick dissolving glue to strap on little lights onto the backs of trapped and released bats so that they might better see the bats as they fly, documenting flight patterns, eating habits, etc. etc. et until the danged lights fall off, like, almost imMEDiately, freaking cetera. Okay, so their technology is constantly evolving…
Along the way, Tuttle accepts offers of assistance from young college grads working on theses, initiating them into the wilds of nature (And no! do NOT poop in the bushes and use Poison Ivy as toilet paper! Ooops, too late!), watching from down on the ground as the nimblest of a Soon to Be Indiana Jones of the Environment scales a mighty tree to gather figs for lures… only to discover the Perfect Figs were Untouched cuz O’ Swarming, Biting, Jungle Ants!
Also along the way? Tuttle is encouraged to learn the art and craft and science of Nature Photography as he trots the globe over, compiling a vast assortment of articles and photo essays for “National Geographic (-Trademark-!) Magazine”. These have him rappelling down cliffs into caves, have him leaping from hot air balloons on night flights (Thereby dang near causing a veritable heart attack for the unsuspecting balloon operator), have him pissing off an elephant as he innocently (And ooooh soooo ignorantly!) plops himself down to take a pic of it… uhm… CHARGING…
What I reeeally appreciated about the man and his work is that, yesss, while he’d love to save every bat, he does indeed acknowledge that man and bat MUST learn to live together. Yes, there are bat squads dedicated to wipe out Vampire Bats (There are only 3 kinds on the planet out of the gazillion… and six! varieties) as they do indeed harm cattle (Tho’ I, who am less tolerant and view humans with more of a, saaaay, squid’s eye, shall point out that this is forest, newly razed for ranch land, thus wiping out the bat habitat). Tuttle works with the ranchers on ways to protect their cattle, and then he works with charismatic heroes on educational films to educate the populace on which bats are so very helpful to farmers, and which can indeed be harmful to cattle. Tuttle listens, does NOT judge, educates, and is completely mindful that, by sacrificing a few, many, SO many essential bat types can thus be saved.
He even listens when men in America sit around, jawing about wiping out entire cave-fulls of bats with a few sticks of dynamite, and attempts educating them on the contributions of bats to communities. The men are unswayed, but never does Tuttle judge, he just goes higher up the chain of humanity, extends education there, introduces his little winged friends (Much to exclamations of: Why, they’re CUTE!), and pretty soon those men that were formerly pondering exploding caves are working to protect them. I dunno how Tuttle manages to keep his cool, but I admire him greatly for his efforts, and for his successes.
I DO know why he says Former Wife, however, as the man is AAAALLLL about Bats and Crossing the Globe, never at home, taking chances, wandering in rainforests, creeping through jungles, dangling (As mentioned) from hot air balloons, staking out light posts in urban shopping centers to catch male bats as they sing to attract females…. staying there for HOURS, in rooms playing recordings of frogs croaking and singing to monitor bats’ abilities to differentiate croaks, thereby confirming that their eating patterns (Of frogs, MUCH offense to frogs!) vary with croaks and songs, spending ooooodles of time coaxing and calming caught bats to get them to eat in front of a camera, just plain ol’ NOT being there for a person, but TOTALLY being there for bats and science and the environment and for people who need help and might be spazzing cuz o’ bats and ignorance. I get it, I get it, soooo DEFinitely Former Wife.
And I’ve come to ponder that p’raps narrator Sean Runnette might be a Master of Nonfiction. I remember listening to the fictional Breakfast with Buddha and barely giving him a pass cuz his delivery was so flat; I let it go because the main character is spiritually dead, so maaaaybe such dryness was hmmm…. okay… However, with earlier nonfiction works we’ve here in our Catalogue of Sean Runnette, I’m learning that man! can he infuse an author’s work with just the right amount of flash and dash and breathless enthusiasm, or what?! Here, we see Merlin Tuttle as excited youth, growing into knowledgeable man, and going on further to distinguish himself as leading expert on All Things Bat. Bravo, Mr. Runnette! Well done, as gosh, I did SO come to love and admire Tuttle!
Soooo, can ya tell that I GREATLY enjoyed m’self here? I found it to be an extremely well-written, well-narrated, study of one man’s eager devotion, his utter fascination and outright joy in a life well-lived, a career spanning years (And technological breakthroughs!) that he seemed truly happy to have chosen.
I say it a lot, but it’s so very apt here:
DeLIGHTful! AbsoLUTEly!
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