Conservationists and communities are planting thousands of agave plants to protect endangered bats, as well as the future of Mexico’s tequila production.<\/p>\n
In the dusty expanse of central Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert, chill, dark caves are hidden in the brown rocks. Inside them, during late Spring, are thousands of small, furry bats. Most of them are female and pregnant \u2013\u00a0and they’ve set off on a 1,00<\/a>0 mile (1,609km) journey<\/a> from southern Mexico to the southwest of the US, where they’ll give birth. They’re hungry and fly for hours at night to find enough food. They flap from plant to plant, collecting nectar and spreading pollen as they go.<\/p>\n Among their favourites are the fluffy yellow flowers of the agave plant \u2013\u00a0flowers that appear just once in the plant’s decades-long lifetime. These spiky, fleshy-leaved agave plants have a long history<\/a> in Mexican culture. They’re used to make syrup, rope and soap,\u00a0and their juice is the main ingredient in one of Mexico’s most iconic exports: tequila.\u00a0<\/p>\n But wild agave plants are declining<\/a>: in a study<\/a> of 168 species, 42 are now threatened or severely endangered. This means less food for bats that depend on their flowers \u2013 and fewer bats in turn means that fewer agave plants are pollinated. To break the cycle, conservationists are working with locals to plant thousands of agave plants \u2013 helping feed the bats and protect the future of Mexico’s tequila production.<\/p>\n One agave-dependent bat species \u2013\u00a0the lesser long-nosed bat\u00a0\u2013\u00a0has seen a remarkable population recovery<\/a> in recent decades, multiplying from 1,000 in 1988 to an incredible 200,000 today. But others are not doing so well. The Mexican (or greater) long-nosed bat has declined by an estimated 50%<\/a> over the past two decades and is currently endangered<\/a>. Another species, the Mexican long-tongued bat, has near-threatened status<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conservationists and communities are planting thousands of agave plants to protect endangered bats, as well as the future…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-236411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}